Penny

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The hangar floor still trailed smoke even after the plasma thrusters had been cut off. Though the concrete itself was immune to the fury of the ionized jets, dirt and impurities had been burned away by the sustained blast filling the air with a pungent reek. Stray ions prickled at the skin and tickled at the sinuses as Sayeeda came down the ramp to join the gathering. She had traded the ruined leather bodysuit for her customary fatigues and her full battle rig. It The ceramic chestplate was latched closed and her helmet was visor down and opaque as the crystalline heart of a star. Her webbing was hung with a variety of grenades and magazines for the heavy plasma rifle that she cradled in the crook of her arm. A quick spray of combat sealant, a mix of antiseptic, healing factors and artificial skin had salved the burns on her palms although they still felt tacky. Saxon stiffened when he saw her, clearly realizing that his armor wouldn’t protect him against her new found hardware, even if he was willing to chance it against Neil and Sven.

“Gnarloc has to think we still have the aestimobium,” she declared, cutting into the the silence with a clear authoritative tone.

“That is the reason we only had to deal with his goons, rather than the whole city.” The kingpin couldn’t put out a planet wide bounty on them if he were worried about the hunters realizing the potential fortune they had in their hands.

“But that's done now, if he dosen’t crush us fast and hard every other second rate ganger is going to smell blood in the water.” It made intuitive sense to Junebug, the basic strategy of an Armored unit was to hit hard and fast and keep hitting until the enemy collapsed, their actions had made Gnarloc look weak and he couldn’t tolerate that and hope to survive. Everyone spoke at once, voices gabbeling over each other in a confused mass of plans and objections.

“We need to retake my ship!” Saxon hissed, winning over Taya’s assertion that they should leave and Sven objecting that this wasn’t part of his deal by virtue of the bass his reptilian lungs gave his words. Junebug considered shooting the alien. It really did make alot of sense just to end the threat now with a hail of plasma bolts but if they were going to recover their prize they needed as many bodies as they could get.

“Unless you had some serious security Gnarloc’s men have already captured it,” Junebug said in a neutral ton.

“Even if he hasn’t moved it I doubt we will be able to recover it,” she went on, well aware that if the roles had been reversed she would have attempted to retake the Highlander against nearly any odds. Saxon hissed and cast a baleful glance at Neil, adding one more injustice to his already extensive list.

“Is your ship worth more than 10 million credits?” Sayeeda asked pointedly. Saxon bared his fangs but his posture relaxed slightly.

“There is 40 million worth of aestimobium and we weren’t negotiating very hard. Ten million each,” she said, making a broad gesture to incorporate the three men.

“I should get more of a share seeing my ship has been lost,” Saxon interjected angrily. Sayeeda swung the heavy plasma rifle to her shoulder, the 2cm bore pointed right at the lizards chest.

“What you should get are three million joules to the chest for fucking up our deal in the first place, but I’m feeling all generous like,” Junebug replied icily.

“I’m a bad enemy to have woman,” the lizard snapped, gums drawing up around his impressive fangs.

“No one is any kind of enemy when they are splattered across half a hangar bay,” Junebug observed in a reasonable tone. Sven laughed, a dry corpse like sound that made Sayeeda’s skin crawl.

“I’ll settle for a larger share if you want to kill him Captain, but we will all be settling for no shares at all if we stand around here for too much longer.” Saxon’s posture relaxed slightly in sullen acquiescence and Junebug lowered the gun to a patrol carry.

“Alright, get the mech into the cargo bay, does it have jump jets?” she asked, casting her eyes over the metal behemoth. Sven shook his head sadly.

“Afraid not,” he said with a bloodless grin, “maybe next upgrade?” Sayeeda nodded, assimilating the information.

“OK, Taya think you can handle a combat drop? We are going to need Neil in the mech. We will go in hard and fast, the Highlander will pull back to orbit and extract us when we have the goods.” Lifting the debris free with the mech wasn’t the best possible solution, particularly because the second they returned to the ruins of the night club it would be immediately obvious what they were doing, but the longer they delayed the more they risked that some random clean up crew would recover the priceless ore.

The Sunday Group

@ihinka Goodbye! It has been a pleasure writing with you.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug grabbed at her goggles as circuitry popped and sizzled. With a curse she tore the optics from her face smelling her hair burning as she clawed at her eyes. Unlike her helmet, the googles weren’t hard core millitary equipment and weren’t shielded, someone had just set off an emp that had cooked them. With a sick feeling she reached into her pocket and pulled out the smouldering radio transceiver Neil had given her, dropping the smouldering junk to the ground. Saxon hissed in fury as his own armor hissed and popped though it didn’t seem to impair his motion.

“Some idiot must have set of an EMP,” Sayeeda said as she pulled open a ventilaton panel and dropped into the shaft. In the close confines she could smell her singed hair even over the sharp scent of the roaring plasma thrusters. Grimly she crawled forward untill she came to a fan housing that looked down on the hanger. Outside came the booming echo of heavy calibre gunfire. Had they been spotted? Or were the gangsters making a move.

The interior of the hangar was a rolling hell of pale blue flame. Taya had turned the thrusters to maximum appeture, a setting designed to test the thrusters rather than generate any lift. All six thrusters spewed fire in a continuous stream that licked and flickered around the vessel like flames at a log. If there had been any equipment within thirty meters it had been burned to ash by now. Several loading jacks smouldered on the edge of inferno. It was a smart move, but between the EMP and the radio hash kicked off by the engines themselves Junebug had no way to contact the aristocrat. Harsh chemical byproducts stung her nose and made her eyes water as she tried to figure out someway to get in contact with the Highlander.

“I’ll have to go down..” she murmered. Behind her Saxon made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sneer.

“You will be burned alive,” the alien said with calm certitude. Sayeeda didn’t disagree but it wasn’t as though staying here was a great option. The gunfire on the street intensified and a trio of holes suddenly punched in the wall below her. One of the slugs ricoched off the hull of the highlander in a spray of orange sparks.

“Well now or never I guess,” Junebug muttered and kicked the fan housing open with a blow of her boot. Before she could think better of it she dropped into the hangar falling the ten feet to the ventral hull of the ship. The heat rose up like a sheet as she hit the hull, grabbing at the housing of the foward turrent before her momentum carried her down into the flames. The hot metal burned her palms and her leather suit smouldered, her lungs burned from the hea to the air and hot plasma seared her throat and sinuses. Pushing herself to her feet she ran to the forward emergency hatch and pounded on it with her feet in rythmic sequence. If this didn’t work…. The hatch sprang open the instant she finished tapping out the access code. Without waiting to question her good fortune she dropped into the open hatch. Cool air filled her lungs and she let out a gasping breath. Hopefully Saxon hadn’t followed her, though if he had there were no clangs against the hull to indicate he had.

Taya turned and let out a scream as Sayeeda reached the bridge. Sayeeda looked around in concern until she realised that she was the cause of the girls distress. Taya clearly hadn’t been expecting her captain to materialize behind her, which meant it was a good bet that Lonny had been the one to open the hatch.

“Stars Junebug you scared the crap out of me, are you ok?” she asked. Sayeed looked down at her scorched hair, and blistered palms, pieces of her coat were actively smouldering. She shrugged.

“I’ve had worse,” she said matter of factly and began stripping off the burning garments.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know what to do! A bunch of thugs with guns tried to force their way onto the ship and…” Taya’s words tumbled out in a panicked stream and her eyes were very wide. Junebug placed a hand on her shoulder as she pulled her way free of her leather body suit.

“You did great Taya, really great,” she said as she stripped to her underwear, tossing the ruined and burning leather into one of the trash receptacles.

“Any idea what the firing out there is…”

The front wall of the hangar exploded into rubble as something that looked like an agricultural mech mated with a suit of power armor smashed its way through the steel reinforced feroconcrete.

“Uhhhh…”

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

“My father wanted my husband to familiarize himself with our … interests here,” Camilla supplied allowing the slightest catch of embarrassment to stunt the end of her sentence. It was not an uncommon practice for nobles with more family honor than coin to marry wealthy wives from the merchant class, though it wasn’t the sort of thing that one dwelt on. Being sent to check up on business interests in Kislev was a plausible excuse both for their presence and for Camilla’s obvious foreginess. It aslo made people sufficiently reluctant to press for more information.

“Ah,” Adolf said with a curt nod, his wife made a slight simper clearly relieved to have found some class superiority to the gorgeous Tilean.

“Well I dare say we will all be here to the end of the winter, even after these rabble disperse,” Adolf went on, gesturing vaguely at the battlements with his goblet of wine. Cydric frowned his nostrils flaring slightly which made Camilla uneasy. She really wished she had her sword with her but there would have been no way to excuse it at the Hussar’s Hooves nor would she have been allowed to bring it into the presence of the Duke.

“Will they disperse do you think?” Camilla asked her voice timid and concerned. She clung to Cydric’s arm as though terrified, warming to her self appointed role.

“Have no fear my dear, these walls could defy a force five times that size and to attack in winter? Madness, only to be expected from degenerate idiots,” Richter blustered. Camilla didn’t point out the fact that the snow on which the army camped had already melted, clearly whatever else they might fear, the Chaos army didn’t fear the winter.

“My husband says much the same,” Camilla went on with evident relief.

“He was with the Duke of Nordland when they defeated the Norscan raiders at the beginning of the winter,” she said, clutching Cydric proudly. Richter arched an eyebrow.

“Yes there are all sorts of stories going around about that, a desperate last stand, apparently some sell sword named Becker or Booker or some such launched a surprise attack and burned their ships,” Richter said confidentially.

“Cydric Becker!” Camilla asked her voice rising an octave in mock awe.

“I have heard he is the most handsome man in the Empire with the strength of a great wolf!” she whispered with faux giddiness. Elise rolled her eyes at such a comment.

Give Me Your Favorite Quote(s).

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap. - Kurt Vonnegut

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Neil felt a sudden unpleasantly familiar pressure against the small of his back. One did not forget the feeling of a gun being pressed into one’s kidneys easily after all. No one in the crowd paid much attention to Sven as he stepped up behind his one time friend, concealing the weapon in the folds of his coat.

“I was just thinking I should by a jingo ticket, and well and behold a jingo ticket comes to me,” Sven said placing one hand on Neils shoulder to prevent him from pulling away from the gun.

“I don’t know what you assholes did to Gnorlacc, but whatever it is the bounty he put out on you is big enough for me to spend the rest of my life somewhere far better than this stinking shitpile.”

With deft motions he guided Neil towards the edge of the market, where a large garage, its sign large an neon but in an unfamiliar script sat, the open maintenance bay yawning cavernously.

“If you will just step inside…”

________________________________

“You’ll have to boost me,” Junebug said. The roof of the hangar was thirty meters away but a story beneath them. Saxon bared his fangs at the suggestion.

“Why should I help you, more likely this is a trick so that Edwards can escape my clutches,” the alien grumbled. Sayeeda placed her balled hands on her hips in exasperation.

“Oh yeah, this is all part of our master escape plan, Neil is probably on a tramp freighter out of system already.” The Hex spat onto the concrete, the warm fluid sizzled slightly and Sayeeda had the unpleasant impression that the things bite might be poisonous.

“He was always weak when it came to females,” Saxon rejoined, causing Sayeeda to arch an eyebrow. Whatever history Neil had with Saxon it was obviously more personal than she had imagined. Neil had told her that he had been a mech pilot in some war, he didn’t really seem old enough to have been kicking around the galaxy long enough to have that sort of history. Well if she survived she supposed she could ask.

“Whatever, just boost me,” she snapped, pulling open closures to loosen her leather bodysuit and gain a few extra inches of motion. The Hex glanced skeptically at the hangar roof across the street.

“You will break your bones,” he said, the assessment surprisingly neutral, as though voluntarily breaking bones were something that ought be considered but not necessarily rejected. Junbug moved back up the accessway to give herself a run up.

“Only if I’m really unlucky, and besides, its not like my options look that great otherwise,” she added. Saxon squatted down and made a stirrup out of his clawed hands.

“If you abandon me I will kill you as well as the pilot female,” Saxon hissed, his voice filled with menace.

“If I had a credit for everytime I heard that one,” Sayeeda said and sprinted down the accessway towards the hex. Just before she reached him she bounded into the air and bought her right foot down in his hands, the Hex uncoiled like an olympic shotputer and hurled her out over the street. For a moment she arched upwards on momentum before gravity reasserted itself. Spending years in speeding combat vehicles prepared you for that shocking second when the ground wasn’t there. You had to keep functioning, keep thinking, or else you were going to loose your vehicle in an unexpected gully or swale. Sayeeda twisted forward as she flew, letting her head drop. The street below rushed up and for a moment she thought she wasn’t going to make it. Then her hands struck the roof of the hangar and she let them fold slowly as she tucker her chin down and balled her body up. She tumbled across the ferocrete roof and slammed into one of the ventilation motors that perched atop it with a crash. The leather clothing she wore saved her from being torn to bloody rags by the stunt but the jolt she had adsorbed with her arms and wrists hurt like hell. Groggily she came to her feet waving at Saxon. It didn’t sound like anyone in the street had noticed either the airborne mercenary or the sound of her abrupt return to the ground, that wasn’t surprising, the steady thrum of the Highlanders plasma motors was enough to dull the senses of anyone this close.

“Now I just have to get in touch with Taya,” she muttered brushing at her now ragged clothing with irritation. The heel of one of her boots had torn away in the fall. Curse this planet and everyone on it.
@POOHEAD189

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene opened his mouth to object but closed it before speaking. It had not occurred to him until that moment just how different they were viewing their situation. Their shared class give them a bond but it didn’t mean they thought alike. Alot had happened and they had been to relieved by the escape from New Concordia, and too thrilled with each others company, to really take stock of the situation. Solae’s training was with the diplomatic corp in which one tiny slip up could mean the disastrous failure of a mission. Rene, as much as he prided himself with resisting the Marine Corps not so subtle indoctrination techniques had a different perspective. It appeared he had internalized more of the Corp never say die attitude than he had imagined. For a moment he flashed back to a tactics lesson in which one of the troopers had asked what they should do if faced with certain death. The instructor, Sergeant Gindi, had shrugged his shoulders and grinned before delivering the line: Well, you can always take one with you. It had become something of a tag-line after that. Rene also had to admit that he had been improvising and hadn’t had time to convey everything to Solae. He had expected her to obey him like a soldier would, which was ridiculous because she was stratospherically above him in any measure of rank. Fighting back a blush of embarrassment he climbed onto the bed and sat cross legged turning her to face him. The light immediately dimmed as Mia attempted to create an ambience, Rene squeezed his eyes shut for a moment in mock defeat.

“Back on New Concordia, we were reacting to the enemy,” he said, taking her hands in his.

“Infact I probably would have blundered around until we had gotten captured or killed if you hadn’t suggested Amber Horizion,” he went on truthfully. Without the Syshin there was almost no possibility they would have found a way off word.

“What I would have given for a slightly damaged, sligltly low on fuel, starship back then,” he said with a rueful laugh.

“But we are off New Concordia, the Rebels have to react to us now. They don’t know where we are, the dont know what our plans are.” It sounded good, although Rene had to privately admit that he didn’t know exactly what their plans were either, that made it easy for them to be unpredictable.

“I can get across the strait to San Roayo, the Bonaventure has an inflatable for emergencies,” he went on the idea firming in his mind as he verbalized it.

“I can probably get fuel and get back here.” It would be chaotic, there would be evacuations, aid workers, rescue efforts and he severely doubted any security personnel would still be at their posts in the face of the storm that still raged outside. Reluctantly he let go of her hand and plucked a personal holo slate from where it had fallen. He linked it to the Bonaventure and bought up the schematic the sensors had created of San Roayo, a sophisticated composite of incoming sensor images, publically available files, and snatches of high orbit images from the ships previous visits.

“What I can’t do is find their governmental communication facilities, or hack their database to get a list of PEA stations, or figure out which one of those stations is likely to be the best bet to approach.” Rene squeezed Solae’s hand firmly. He deliberately omitted any mention of the fact that such a communications center would be an excellent place to dig into the past. It wasn’t that he expected her to forget her investigation, but he hoped the current trouble would drive it from her mind at least for the time being.

“Or for that matter, land an unfamiliar ship in the middle of a typhoon in a LZ half the size of a Grav Ball field,” His features split into a proud smile as he passed the holo slate to her, eyes sparkling with renewed enthusiasm.

“I don’t suppose you know anyone like that do you? Because I could sure use their help.”

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene paused, the brusque response jolting him out of the mood of wonder and euphoria of moments before. What was eating the woman? She ought to be euphoric at the success of the landing, not concerned about what amounted to very minor damage considering the source. They were on the surface and the hull was degaussing, not bad going for two nobles whos only experience with ship handling had been theoretical overviews and a little coaching from an AI not suited to the purpose. Instinctively Rene came to parade rest, even though Solae couldn’t see him from this angle.

“Looks like the damage is fairly minor, some hull torque and a bent landing strut,” he reported as though delivering the information to an officer. Water dripped from his soaked clothing to the deck in a steady flow. The slight cant of the hull, drew the fluid in a stream towards the hold and the grating which had once been used to remove the waste products of comatose Syshin.

“We will have to wait till the floor of the Caldera drains and drys so we can lift,” he went on, turning access one of the data terminals built into the wall. The holographic unit hummed to life but the display flickered erratically, another casualty of long disuse and indifferent maintenance. He keyed in a sequence of quick diagnostics and fuel consumption figures. On current reserves they could probably lift out of the atmosphere but only just, and landing again at the next destination would be all but impossible. The Bonaventure had obviously expected to resupply on New Concordia when it picked up its cargo of slaves, an activity forestalled by the violent events of its capture. Fuel and intelligence were the top priorities now. They badly needed to know where a functional PEA might be found and how widespread the rebellion might be.

The nearest settlement, according to the information the Bonaventure’s sensors had gleaned in orbit, was Porto San Roayo. Panopontus was not densely settled by Imperial standards. The relatively small islands didn’t have space or industry to support huge cities. The majority of Panopontians were engaged in the gathering of various species of coral that occurs naturally in the worlds shallow seas. The coral was an essential ingredient in a number of medications and recreational hallucinogens, though the processing of the drugs required tolerances to precise to be achieved on Panopontus itself. The raw coral was transhiped to larger more industrial worlds, processed into its final world and then sold forward to the more populous and prosperous worlds of the Eastern Cross and the greater Empire beyond. The coral divers lived in small communities of several hundred at most, usually on small islands and atolls that clustered around a larger hub like San Roaya, where the limestone plates were sufficiently thick to permit the landing of starships. The hub cities provided light industry, administration and landing facilities for the offworld traders who bought the harvest to market. Even so the star ports were small affairs, suitable for tramps like the Bonaventure but far too small to accept bulk freighters or warships like the central starport at New Concordia did.

The only place on Panopontus that could accept heavy ships was the planetary capital at Areydiz on planets only major continent on the southern pole. Rene had deliberately avoided Areydiz on the theory that if there were rebellious elements on the world, they would most likely be located there. San Roayo with its population of thirty to fifty thousand was one of two or three dozen similarly sized secondary cities, big enough for what they needed, but small enough to avoid too much official attention, or so Rene reasoned. Of course they place might be half destroyed or evacuated due to the storm, but so much the better, the more confused the situation, the easier it would be to get in, get what they needed and get out.

A narrow straight, nameless as far as Rene knew, separated the Bonaventure's current landing site from San Roayo, it was only about 20 kilometers wide. Minutes by jumper or fast boat, but Rene didn’t have access to either of those. He presumed the Bonaventure had sort of inflatable for emergency landings, but if it didn’t he was confident that he could improvise something out of what was to hand.

“Mia do you have an estimate for out state stabilization?” he asked, unable to think of how to call up the information on the flickering holographic display.

“Unknown,” the computer purred seductively. Rene resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Based on previous data how long should it take?” he replied, rephrasing the question. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that even fairly basic sensor equipment wasn’t in working order.

“Previous atmospheric stopovers have been between twelve and sixteen hours,” Mia supplied. It wasn’t simply a matter of shedding waste heat. Travel through jumpspace caused a certain amount of quantum distortion, if you pushed it long enough a vessel could find new and unsurvivable configurations. The exact mechanism was unknown, due to the fact that vessels that suffered such a fate were never recovered, but it was theoretically possible for sections of a ship to boil away or suddenly be rendered The only way to restore the equilibrium was to spend time in the sidereal universe, preferably in an atmosphere where contact with normal state molecules was order of magnitudes higher than in vacuum. Sixteen hours ought to be plenty long enough for them to do what they needed but the sooner they got started the better. He had no way know how much long it would take to dry the base of the caldera to the point they could lift, but he wanted it to be as soon as possible.

Forcing himself to move he headed back into the cabin after Solae. It was clear to him she was upset though he didn’t understand why. The brief freefall had scattered item all over the floor, though it was still infinitely better than it had been when they first found it. Something of a metaphor for their situation in general he supposed. Rene carefully stepped around the detritus. By now the glowing motes on his clothing had all but faded, the photonic reaction evidently short lived. Only a few bright spots still remained.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he stooped to pick up a sanitation pack and replace it on the shelf. The part of him which was used to the subtlety of court squirmed at the bluntness of the question, but if she was hurt, or shaken he needed to know immediately.

The All Dawi Party - A Warhammer Fantasy Adventure

Not sure if that's interest ooooor...

@Jbcool

I prefer to save my creative energy for RPs that will actually eventuate! ;)

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - A Modern Fantasy Adventure!

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