Penny

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug felt the crunch of permafrost beneath her feet as she took her place in the line of soldiers as they advance towards the wall of snow draped pine trees. Her terran undersuit turned white but her own ceramic breastplate remained steadfastly tan. The trusty old armor was mottled with ceramic patching from a dozen minor mishaps and it clashed sufficiently to make her stand out among the group. She looked at the unarmored York and grinned. York’s expression was strangely guarded as though he expected some reaction from her, but raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I was just thinking how glad I am to have someone like you along,” she confided with a ghost of a smile.

“Why is that Captain?”

“You are a more obvious target for snipers than me.” York laughed in amusement at the notion, a sound that drew a concerned glance from Woods and several of the nearby soldiers.

“I don’t think that any guardians the Ancient’s left in this place are likely to be using modern scout sniper training,” York said, his tone conceding the point to her even though the words refuted it.

“Hey it is your life,” she said before knuckling her chest plate, “and mine I guess.” York nodded equiabley. Ahead of them one of the soldiers looked up from his scanner and held up a fist in what Sayeeda presumed was the Terran field signal for halt. The line of soldiers stopped within a second or so, crouching down to make themselves as small targets as was possible.

“Why didn’t you take the body armor we provided?” the intelligence officer asked after a moment. Junebug shrugged and was silent for a moment before responding.

“I guess i’ve lived this long with my own equipment, why take the chance right?” York laughed again earning an irritated glance from Woods who would apparently have preferred silence.

“Superstitious Captain?”

“It has worked so far,” she repeated. The soldier with the scanner reached into an ammunition pouch and withdrew a small object that turned out to be a portable luminator, an electric kind rather than the chemical types Junebug was familiar with. He thumbed the unit live and tossed it like a grenade towards the trees. The glowing ball sailed in an arc towards the pines, and then, suddenly flickered out and fell dead into the snow. Junebug’s helmet, familiar with the effect from previous Terran data drew a holographic redline across the snowy landscape at the projected location of the barrier.

“Mr Edwards,” York said over the commlink, “Its time to see if they will open up when you knock on the door.”

Damned to the Depths

A sense of euphoric triumph flowed through Calliope as she continued to chant. She could feel the arcane powers gathering and distantly sense the runes as they began to blaze on her skin. The world seemed to sink into the gray fog that she had felt when she called the wind in Calaverde and she again felt the unnerving presence just out of sight. Unlike before, this time she could see Markus and the garrison commander clearly. Both of them were bleeding in an exaggerated scarlet that seemed to hammer with the beat of her heart. She strained to make out the chest of gold, which seemed luminous and insubstantial. The real world seemed to be fading faster than it had back in Calaverde but she was better prepared for it. The commanders lips moved though no sound she could hear emerged from them. They spell continued to build within her like a ship being constructed at incredible speed. There was an uncomfortable sense that whatever lurked in the fog was coming closer. Without conscious thought the dagger in her hand raked across the throat of the captured officer and a sheet of scarlet, almost painful to her arcane senses, exploded outwards. Columns of black entropic energy enveloped her, Markus and the chest and everything vanished into darkness.

Hands shook her awake and the scent of leaf mould filled her nostrils. Calliope blinked her eyes, and sat up feeling decidedly queasy. The concerned face of Jim looked down at her and he immediately blushed and looked away. Markus was sitting up a few feet away from her cursing a blue streak. Beside him the chest lay across a fallen log. Calliope looked down at her hand, faint yellow gold runes were fading even as she watched.

“What… what happened,” she asked, looking around and taking in the lush tropical forest. Cannons boomed somewhere off in the distance and she heard the sound of masonry shattering somewhere nearby. People were screaming and guns were going off. The landing party seemed to be clustered around them, taking cover in the low gulch.

“We… we saw the castle… well you know,” Jim stammered. The youth’s face was smudged with ash and Calliope could smell powderburns. She didn’t know. The spell had been intended to intimidated the locals into surrendering but it obviously hadn’t worked as she had intended. She wiped her hands on the leaves, finding them tacky with blood and stood up moving unsteadily to the edge of the gulch. Across the lip she looked down into the village. Despite the fact of cannon fire there were people in the streets. All of them looked slack jawed up towards the small rocky rise on which the keep stood… well mostly stood. A great black column blazed from the heart of the structure seeming to suck in the light. It rose to the heavens like an impaling spike that some angel had hurled from the heavens. As she watched the column began to disintegrate with the slow majesty of a landslide. Chunks of the black substance reigned down on the castle like hale and where they struck the stone seemed to smoke and crumble. Within moments the whole fortification was consumed by the falling black rain, even the supporting rock seemed to crumble as though a thousand years of weathering occured within a few seconds.

According to the spell book, what little she could make out of it, the spell was supposed to summon ‘Hyadic fire’ which she had intended to use to intimidate the locals into surrendering. It certainly didn’t mention teleportation or whatever had happened to the fortress. Her head swam with half remembered sensations and she had the odd conviction that it was something about the blood she had used for the spell which was to blame. Her hand slipped into her pouch where the codex still resided. She wanted very much to take it out and study the text and see what new insights she could gain but now was not the time.

“Exactly as I had planned,” she lied modestly. The guns had fallen silent on both sides now as they, no doubt, gaped at the impressive destruction that had occured. Several of the crew looked at her in shock and horror, one of the triplets even made a sign against evil.

“Captain, I suspect you might find them amenable to surrender.”

Craving some Vampiric RP. F X M 18 +

It actually kind of staggers my imagination to think of playing Vlad Tepes in a modern setting. Either his mind is stuck in a more ancient mindset, or he has to attempt some fusion of ancient values (and the terrible stuff he has done) with modern ones.

Damned to the Depths

Calliope looked speculatively at the narrow gap above and then unclasped her sword belt and passed it to Markus. Drawing the knife from her boot she clasped it between her teeth and shimmied out onto the narrow ledge. Below in the town men and women were screaming and a bronze bell began to toll in completely unnecessary warning. From the walls there was no way to tell what was going on although Calliope saw a trio of half dressed soldiers rush from the tavern. One of them clutched at his stomach and pitched into the street, evidence that at least some of the crew were still firing.

"This seemed alot simpler when you were explaining it on the beach," she snapped and then reached up and caught the ledge with her fingertips. Taking a deep breath she pulled herself up, hanging momentarily above the yawning gulf. She pulled her stomach tight and looped one leg up and through the railing, for a moment the silk of her leggings slid on the stone but she got her other leg up in time to catch the weight. Cursing she pulled herself through the gap, scraping herself at breast and hip. She made it through the narrow oppening and stood up to find herself on a small balcony. Curtains of dirty fabric flapped in the wind across an arched stone doorway. There was another splintering crash downstairs and Markus' voice echoed up to her.

"Anny time now!"

Thinking the curtains might make a suitable rope she ran into the room. Something struck her across the jaw and she went down, crashing into the side of the arch. She bounced off the archway and tumbled into the chamber another blow swept over her head and she had the sudden smell of sweat and steel. Calliope struck out with her right foot and was rewarded with a grunt of pain as she connected with a shin. She could just make out a half dressed figure before the man threw himself on top of her, his arm closing around her throat, closing her airway. Calliope gasped and choked. Her assailant was to strong for her to fight off and she could feel spots dance across her eyes. She pressed her hand against her opponents neck and wheezed a word. There was a sudden flash of light and heat and the man screamed, the pressure on her throat vanished as the man rolled away, his face was a mask of pain illuminated by his own burning hair. Calliope snapped another word and a jet of force struck him in the chest, pitching him back into the darkness of the chamber where he crashed into one of the half seen walls.

Still gasping she rolled to her feet, dizzy from the choking and the two spells. She seized a curtain and tore it from the hooks that secured it. A quick knot secured it to the railing and she pitched it over so it spilled down like a dirty gray rope. She turned and strode across the room to where the rooms sole occupant, her attacker and she presumed, the fortress' commander, groaned feebly in pain. She grabbed a handful of the man's hair and dragged him towards the window. She touched the book through the leather of her satchel, though she didn't actually draw it forth. SHe had learned the spell she had planned to attempt during the voyage and there was little light to go by. The words seemed to hover just behind her eyes and she opened her mouth and began to chant, the words spilling from her lips like liquid. Motes of darkness began to gather around her hands as she chanted.
@POOHEAD189

Damned to the Depths

Calliope slithered up the rope gracefully. Although she wasn’t a natural athlete, she was a slim woman without much tendency to fat. The previous week of sailing had helped of course. The Weather Witch was to small a vessel that anyone could afford to avoid work. While she didn’t do the heaviest physical labour, like working the windlass to raise a yard, she had spent enough time in the rigging to give the impression of being a help. The fact that it made climbing this rope a familiar task was just a bonus. Command, like any other task in the world, was a political process and only fools pretended it wasn’t. People who claimed they weren’t political were simply bad at politics. Another factor in her favor was that she wasn’t carrying much in the way of gear, merely her rapier, a heavy knife, and the Codex.

At Markus’ insistence no one had been allowed to bring a flintlock that still held a flint. The odds of someone tripping or otherwise accidentally firing off a weapon were high enough, and the consequences ruinous enough, that the pirate captain had felt it a sound decision. Several of the raiders had bought pistols but they would have to screw the flints back in once the fighting started. Calliope hadn’t bothered with that. If the situation were bad enough that a pistol made the difference, it was likely to be bad enough that she wouldn’t survive either way.

The parapet of the seafort looked out over a broad section of the small bay. A river, or at least a large creek flowed into the interior tip of the inlet that flared out to two rocky prominatories. Thin strips of sand fringed the bay and coconut trees waved in the soft breeze, filling the night with a gentle rustling. During the war the place must have been a handy place for warships and privateers to take on water and fresh provisions, as well as a handy place to offload cargo and prisoners and to bring prize ships for condemnation. Now the place was little more than a way station, a backwater just as Markus had said. The old trade, gold and spices, must have mostly dried up once the major shipping routes became safer.

They bay glittered under the silver moonlight and, down by the untidy settlement, where yellow lantern light was cast out over the water. The parapet seemed very dark compared to the shining water. Here and there a lantern hung from a wrought iron sconce but the commander of the fort obviously either didn’t see the need for a tremendous amount of light, or, more likely, was too cheap to spend money on the oil the lantern required. Calliope pulled herself fully up onto the parapet and looked around. There was still no sign of sentries, merely a second small tower from which the look out and the signal light should be located. There was no signal light tonight, another sign that the forts commander was both venal and incompetent. It was sometimes the case that component officers got assigned to backwaters, but that tended to be because of a lack of political connection. Calliope was happy to discover that whoever was in command here wasn’t a master tactician.

“Which way from…” Calliope began. A gunshot sounded in the night down by the group of small buildings, a moment later a scream went up and there was a ragged volley of gunfire. Calliope could see flashes from one of the larger buildings. It must have been a tavern of some sort and as such had soldiers in it. Someone in the landing party had obviously screwed up. There was a sudden commotion and two half dressed soldiers clattered down the stairs, shouting with alarm. Calliope stabbed one in the stomach and kicked the screaming man over the parapet a moment before Markus skewered the other one.

“So much for secrecy,” she concluded.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

The walk was becoming familiar Rene thought as he trudged back through the knee deep water of the Caldera. Since the rain had stopped the level had dropped by a few inches. Volcanic the plug of volcanic rock was a fairly water tight substrate but there must be cracks and faults in the caldera that allowed for some drainage, else it would have been a lake rather than a puddle. Even if the rain held off it would be days before the caldrea was free of surface water much less dry. If they had sufficient fuel they could run the thrusters to bake the mud around the landing skids to clay, then shatter it with hammers or explosives. Rene wondered whether suitable charges might be found in San Roayo. Certainly they must use some kind of low yield explosive to break up the coral they harvested.

“Welcome back Sir Rene,” Mia announced in her perfectly normal voice. Rene repressed a shiver at the change, Mia to be speaking so … normally upset him at a subconscious level it seemed. He pressed the stud that sealed the door, killing the ambient whistle of the wind and replacing it with the low hums and buzzes of idling subsystems. Rene turned and headed down the companionway towards the junction that lead to the hold and the living quarters. As he approached the door to the hold slid shut with a smooth his. The soldier arched any eyebrow at this unexpected turn of events.

“Mistress Solae requests that you change and rest,” Mia said her tone a trifle censorious. Rene, who had been in the process of reaching for the manual unlock, paused, trying to force his tired mind to process this new turn of events. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Mia considered Solae to be the mistress of the house and Rene merely as her paramour. That was entirely proper of course but he needed to get into the hold to go over the gear.

“Mistress Solae is with mistress Damaris, who is unlikely to be reassured by the preparation of firearms and other such military accoutrement,” the AI continued still, sounding disapproving. AIs were not technically sentient of course but it was easy enough for humans, programmed as they were to ascribe intent to view them that way and Mia did seem to be extrapolating on Solae’s instructions. Sighing with resignation Rene turned into the sleeping quarters and stepped briefly under the shower, sluicing away the salt and sand of his labours. By the time he stepped out the temperature of the room had risen significantly in an obvious attempt to make him drowsy. Shaking his head in resignation Rene fell onto the bed, still damp from where the water logged Damaris had lain, and fell instantly into unconsciousness.

The Imperial Marines inflicted sleep deprivation on their recruits during training as a matter of course. Rene had historically handled it well, but people who thought they could function without sleep were kidding themselves. Eventually you went a little loopy of course, started to see things that weren’t there, make mistakes. Even wide-awakes the Imperial Militaries standard issue stimulants, could only keep a man going for so long. The payoff was that when you did sleep, it was invariably black and dreamless. Rene, frequently plagued by unpleasant dreams, found this a comfort. When the alarm sounded it seemed to come from very far away. Rene opened his eyes. He seemed for a moment to be peering through panes of glass that reflected the sound of the monotone into shimmering reflections. He had a sensation of movement as though rushing forward at great speed and then he was sitting up with a gasp. The monotone alarm persisted for a second or two until Mia was sure he wouldn’t fall back to sleep. Rene pulled on his combat pants, boots and a tan undershirt he typically wore for exercise. He reached for his pistol and then remembered Mia’s words about disturbing Damaris. For a moment his hand wavered in indecision before he grasped the holster pistol and stuffed it into one of the large thigh pockets. He ran his thumb over the seal and closed it with a soft snap.

“Mia, where are Solae and Damaris?” he asked, presupposing that they would be in the same location.

“They have returned to the galley Sir Rene,” Mia responded pleasantly. Returned from where Rene wondered, but it was unlikely to be important. The chronometer indicated they still had twenty minutes until the ideal time for departure, but that was time enough to get the supplies and the three of them to the barge. Rene grinned as he opened the door to the galley. THen all they had to do was cross twenty kilometers of storm tossed waters, infiltrated a hurricane wracked settlement, find or steal fuel and break into a government compound and hijack their communication equipment. Well, one thing at a time.

Spontaneity and Adaptability (Seeking High Casual/Advanced Partner)

Honestly, I kind of love that plot generator :P

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

ayeeda turned her back on Woods and Neil and headed back towards the rear of the ship. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the relationship but tired to remind herself that Neil was an adult and fully capable of making his own decisions. It wasn’t as though Woods was hard on the eyes in a ‘I’ll cut your throat and look fabulous doing it’ sort of a way. What was it that bothered her so much? So deep was she in pondering the question that she nearly walked into Sven as he climbed up the access ladder towards the cockpit.

“What have we got,” she demanded of the Cyborg. The question was completely open ended but Sven merely smiled his mirthless emotionless mile.

“The field that protects the city is not a uniform dome as the Terrans theorized, though from the one hundred and twelve probes they launched at it, that was a reasonable conclusion.” They Cyborg did not appear to be impressed or dismayed by the result.

“Its also possible that ground shocks from the bombardment have distorted the underlying field.”

“Suuuuper,” Junebug said, stretching the word out with a definite lack of enthusiasm. She hopped down the ladder in a jump, flexing her knees to take the impact before heading back into the cargo bay as she headed towards the ramp controls one of the Marines reached out a hand to block her path.

“Maam we have to wait for Major York to…”

Junebug grabbed the mans arm by the wrist and yanked him off balance. Before he could recover she grabbed his head with both hands and slammed her knee up into the point of his chin with a crack. In classic Terran fashion he tried to sweep her legs from under her even though he must be reeling from the force of the blow. Junebug was ready for it, bringing her foot down hard on the inside of his armored leg, eliciting a cry of pain. With a negligent jab of her heal she send the man sliding across the deck in a limp boneless heap. Apparently all the extra training was paying off. Junebug became aware that a half dozen weapons were pointed at her but she merely turned and planted her fists on her hips.

“If anyone,” she began in a quiet deadly voice.

“Tries to tell me what I can and can’t do on my own ship. I will fucking kill you.”

The Marines looked back and forth unsure of what to do. There was an unpleasant wrapsing sound and Junebug looked over to see Saxon licking his thin reptilian lips with his long tongue. It took her a moment to realise that he was laughing.
“Neil can we get a damage report,” she said into her commlink. Ignoring the moaning marine and the pointed weapons she dropped the ramp and let in a blast of icy arctic air.

Damned to the Depths

Calliope nodded and drew a roll of parchment from her black sea leather jacket, spreading it out over the table. The parchment was chart that Roderick had given her, showing the whole sea of swords in some considerable detail. Even so any chart that spanned so wide an area was only useful in the most abstract way for actually sailing. This one bore the seal of Tregellian, a family of cartographers reknowned for their accuracy.

“According to what Roderick told me, we have a bit of a job ahead of us.” That was something of an understatement, taking the dowry seemed downright suicidal given what the Sea Lord had been able to share with her. She lay a slender finger far to the southwest.

“The dowry is going to be coming with the treasure fleet from Harada,” she said. The Andred treasure fleet was a convoy of large powerful ships which made a two year circuit with the trade winds. On the way out they carried manufactured goods, particularly steel, for sale in the distant colonies scattered along the Green Coast and into the Vesterdam. On the way back they carried the fabulous wealth of the untamed southern lands. Silver and gold as well as precious stones beyond measure, coffee and sugar and purest ambrosia all flowed back into Andreedi ports. Harada was the oldest of the Andreedi colonies, once it had been a simple port city but the wealth of the colonial administration had built it into an imposing metropolis, as large as anything to be found on the eastern side of the Sea of Swords.

“They won't sail for another three month, maybe four,” Calliope said. Makus was nodding, evidently understanding that the trade winds that blew west to east for half the year would need to reverse before sailing would be possible. That meant that the flotilla had to get underway and out of the tropical waters before the hurricane season began.

“We won’t stand much chance against an entire fleet,” Markus stated bluntly. Calliope nodded her head having made much the same statement to Roderick the night before. The idea of attacking the treasure fleet was not a new one, but even a real naval power would struggle to slug it out with the massive galleons that formed the convoy.

“We have three months, two once we get there,” Calliope said.

“I think our best bet is to try to delay the fleet however we can, if we can keep them from sailing until too late in the season, they will have to risk swinging south along the coast of Angkar, the storms are severe down there I’m told. The greatest admiral in the world couldn’t keep a convoy together down there, they will be forced appart one way or the other and we might be able to make our move.”

It sounded simple when she said it like that, but Calliope had no illusions about the difficulty of what they were about to attempt. They needed to find guns and powder to properly arm the Witch, they need local knowledge, allies and information about their quarry and they needed to keep the crew together, something they couldn’t do on the promise of a distant pay day. Pirates worked for wages and for shares and if either of those things were lacking it wouldn't’ be long before one of them figured that selling them out to the Andredi was a more lucrative proposition. They needed to find targets along the way to keep the men happy and to blood them so that they would be ready when the time came. The only bright spot was that although Andred employed competent sailors, their officer class tended towards the unemployed sons of the nobility who rarely had the aptitude or the training for real sea faring. The state of their mages was similarly woeful, as often as not the post of mage was given to someone who couldn’t so much as light a candle but whose parents had paid to get a position in the fleet.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The Highlander rose out of the sea of flame by only a few dozen meters, trailing whisps of smoke from the tips of its wings. With the instinct of a combat commander Junebug slapped the weapons lockout circuit taking the Highlander’s guns offline before the enthusiastic marines could continue firing. A dozen red warnings blasted across her screen but she silenced them with a tap of her fingertips. Neil wove them among falling torrents of ejecta, keeping them masked from the sensors of their pursuers. Junebug’s instinct told her that the enemy fighters had written them off as dead, particularly as there was a real battle to fight with the November Sky and her squadrons.

For a few seconds there was relative silence save for a few alarms which couldn’t be easily silenced, the steady ping of gravel and rocks against the hull and surviving shields, and Niel’s music. Junebug took her hands somewhat gingerly from her controls and heard Woods blow out a breath that they were all feel.

“That was fucking insane,” the Marine said with a look of incredulity at Niel. THe pilot was whistling along to his music and had put his feet up on the console, lazily flicking the controls to put the Highlander into a slow spin the slid her past some falling debris.

“You aint seen nothing yet,” Neil responded with a smirk.

The atmospheric debris thinned as they streaked south towards the south pole, though the seas below still roiled with the seismic shocks that the planet had adsorbed. The planet, according to the sensors had enough airborne debris to send it into a moderate to severe nuclear winter. There had been no new impacts since the Terran warship had jumped in system however as all the Chalcedon ships had turned their attention to the newcomer, content to finish their bombardment once the threat had been neutralized.

It was hard for Sayeeda not to feel anger at the Chalcedons for such a tactic but then she had certainly firebombed forests, called in artillery with lethal payloads of defoliant chemicals and other environmental catastrophes and she had no doubt that if York thought bombing Saavran would fulfil Terran aims he would do the same thing. Except it wasn't the Terrans doing this. Why were the Chalcedons doing it? And if they were willing to go this far to deny whatever secrets where here to the Terrans, should she really be helping them.

“Coming up on Site Beta boys and girls,” she said unstrapping and standing up. She pulled her helmet down and adjusted the fit, thumbing the familiar settings into place to give herself a 20 percent tactical overlay. York was smirking as though some cosmic joke were about to unfold.

“Lets lock and load.”