Penny

Tales of Tamriel

Kris came unsteadily to her feet, lifting her blood smeared sword in a loose grip. Her muscles ached but the adrenaline in her system was enough to get her ready to face a new threat. The argonian looked oddly black in the aurora light and his axe was menacing. Fighting an opponent armed with a heavy weapon on a narrow defile where there was nowhere to avoid the broad sweeping strikes such weapons favored was not something she would have been excited about even if she was fresh. Fortunately it didn’t seem that murder was on the Argonians mind.

Taking a step forward, Kris crouched down and plucked the fallen slavers knife from his belt and tossed it underhanded to the lead slave. The Khajit caught the weapon and began sawing at the thick rope that bound him. The slaves seemed to be recovering themselves, talking in quit whispers as the Khajit cut himself free. The had been taken in Blackmarsh and Elswher and sold cheap in the slave markets on the coast. Such slaves would doubtlessly be valuable in the ebony mines of the far north, where they would be condemned to a lifetime of brutal and back breaking labor. Kris wondered if Vorn had been the owner of these slaves, buying them to turn a quick profit on his trip to Black Light. If so she was pleased to cost him a small fortune even if he had escaped.

“I’m no friend of the slavers,” she declared in her Breton accented Imperial, making a gesture with her blade to the crumpled body of the man with the whip. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of opened entrails and burnt hair odor from her own body. She wanted very badly to vomit but that was probably more to do with the aftereffects of the potion as her vision dimmed down to its normal levels.

“I don’t know how energetic the garrison at Black Light is likely to be, but a Thaelmor and a former Imperial officer escaped to bring word to them of what happened here. It probably isnt a good idea to linger very long.” She bent down and rifled through the pouches of the first Mer she had killed. There was a small purse of coins, a book and a number of scrolls and letters, she pulled the Mer’s robes free and tossed them to the shivering slaves, before tying her cloak into an improvised napsack for the rest.

Throughout the process she kept her eyes on the armed Argonian, wary in case he made a sudden rush. Curiously she glanced down into the ravine, but it was too dark to make out the shattered body of Vorn’s horse far below. By now most of the Slaves were free, though they still seemed to be milling around rather than taking definite action.

“Who are you?” she asked the Argonian. He was no slaver, perhaps a family member on a quest to free one of the slaves? In any case he was brave to travel this way alone, and risk ending up in an ebony mine himself.

The Sunday Group - Paranormal Detectives

Everyone has a story. You know the story. The one you Aunt dusts off every Thanksgiving when the wine is flowing and the sense is going? The one about the old house on the end of the street where flowers never grow and maybe old Sweeny killed his wife and hid her in the drywall. Or perhaps it was the time your grandmother swore that she saw something floating in a broken window grinning at her. Maybe it was you. Maybe you heard strange voices out in the woods, or glimpsed something in the fog out at sea one night. Maybe you saw the same pale woman everywhere you went for a week and you swear the bitch had no reflection.

There are thousands of stories like these and they all have one things in common. Ninety nine percent of them are bullshit. Of course ninety nine percent certainty means that one time in a hundred you’re dead.

There are things out there in dark. Sometimes they leave us alone, hell maybe most times, but sometimes the snatch up babies and sacrifice them in stone circles. Sometimes the feed on the minds of the living. Sometime they set fires for the joy of watching people burn.

Who do you turn to if something like that happens? Cops can’t help, write you a prescription and ship you to a mental hospital if you even mentioned it. You need professionals, and frankly there aren’t that many people stupid enough to put their heads in that particular noose. People who know, know enough to be fucking terrified. Usually they find the deepest darkest hole they can climb into.

Want to turn to the sort of broken desperadoes still stupid enough to stand in the line of supernatural fire? Good luck with that.

Welcome to the Sunday Group

This RP will follow the adventures of the members of the Sunday Group. It is a story about the occult world behind the world, and those brave or foolish enough to want to understand it.

Somewhere in a big city in America, there is a nondescript building. It is a few stories tall and it has an extensive basement. It could easily be the Law Offices Of Boring, Dreary and Bland, no one would guess that it is the home of one of the nation’s only occult detective agencies.

Employees of the Sunday Group are a diverse bunch. Small time magical practitioners, those with strange abilities, broken down cops who have seen too much, or just regular folk who saw something they shouldn’t and want to do something about it. Everyone who works for the Group has touched the supernatural world in some way or another, and for whatever reason just cant let it go and sink back into the comforting security of the mundane.

The World

The world is very much like our own except there is a secret magical world beneath it. It isn’t happy Twilight Magical though, think of it as somewhere between Harry Dresden and the Call of Cthulhu. Many of the trappings of any Urban Fantasy will apply here and I encourage you to introduce them into the setting. Think a shotgun filled with rocksalt will take out a ghost? Great, it is in. Want werewolves to have a silver allergy? No problem. Anything you want to introduce into the setting will probably be ok. If I have a problem with it, Ill ask you to reconsider privately.

Magic for the Modern Age

Some humans have the ability to handle arcane forces, either innately or through elaborate ritual preparations. Some people gain magical powers via congress with spirits or demons, even Gods there is always a price to pay for subverting the natural order though. Sooner or later the bill comes due.

Magic exists in the world in a multitude of form and traditions. It is even possible to do some magic by computer. I dont want to put to many restrictions on people here. Many types of magic do not require the use of spells or incantations. Some people might be able to move small objects with their minds, read the surface thoughts of others, turn invisible or any number of other small boons you might come up with.

While magic can be very effective under the right circumstances it isn’t a be all and end all solution. A powerful practitioner might be able to hurl a bolt of lighting but it is normally much simpler, safer and more effective just to use a gun. Magic is a tool, use it wisely.

Who are the Players?

The players will take the roles of detectives in the drama, but this won't be an RP solely about solving crime. Personal relationships between characters, their families and dependents will be crucial to the story.

Be connected! The nature of the world is such that all the brooding loners with a tragic but unknowable backstory were exsanginuated long ago. You don’t need to like people, but you do need to depend on them to survive.

What Can I Play?

You can play a human (or near human) with some minor edge over the rest of the herd. You cannot play an immortal dragon vampire samurai. Your character should have some life experience. I don't want to flat out say that they need to be a certain age but my personal preference is to avoid the teenage types who no sane detective would want covering their back when the tentacle hits the pentacle.

Notes On the RP

This will be a small group RP. I’m looking for 3-4 players tops. I want personal interaction to matter and I just dont see that in large group RPs.

This will be a collaborative rp and we will create the world as we go, feel free to introduce detail! I will exercise some limited forms of narrative control if necessary but my instinct is to let it ride if it fits in the framework of the fiction.

This will be an 18+ RP. Sex, drugs, sex drugs and horrible nightmares from distant space times ect.

Inspirations and Style

Inspirations for this include Call of Cthulhu, Harry Dresden, Supernatural, Delta Green, the Laundry Files. The goal is to be not quite as bleak as Lovecraft but to maintain something approaching that level of horror and danger. The protagonists can effect the outcome but plenty of stuff out there is well beyond the weight class of the Sunday Group.

Tales of Tamriel

Chapter 1 - Black Light

18th Day of Hearthfire, Sundas, 4E 201

The wind blew in like a knife off the Sea of Ghosts. Kris pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, though the battered old legionnaires cloak and her leather armor did little to combat the chill. It was mid autumn, but in North Western Morrowind the first snows could only be days away. Kris trailed along the edge of the road, wrinkling her nose at the faint hint of sulphur from distant Vardenfell. She was a trim woman, Breton by her fine bone structure and pale eyes, though her skin had been burned tan by years of long marches under southern skies. Her hair was dark brown and cut short, though in the past weeks it had reached the nape of her neck.

It had been nearly a month since she had left Mournhold, cutting across country to the Gulf of Vardenfell and bartering passage on one of the small oddly shaped Dunmer coasters with their sharp triangular sails. Her quarry was headed for Blacklight, but he had gone the whole way by road. With the Legions absent for nearly a decade, the roads were decaying, rough and in need of repayment. With luck she would reach Blacklight ahead of him. Ryn Vorn had been an Imperial officer once, a captain in the Legion but he had traded that life, and the lives of his men for Thalemor gold. The peace might let him get away with that but Kristalia Courenne was damned if she would. Unconsciously her hand strayed to the hilt of her sword. She was close, she had to be.

It was nearly sundown when she reached the Narrows. The Dunmer farmer who had described it to her hadn’t exaggerated. The road clung to the side of a steep wooded hill on one side, while the other was a nearly vertical drop into a rocky defile. Atop the hill was a ruined watch tower. It lacked the familiar regularity of Imperial construction, dating to some point in the Dark Elven past, perhaps before even the Septims unified the land. Moss grew thick on its ancient stonework, and ravens cawed among its ruined battlements. The ravine also seemed to act as something of a natural boundry. Across the hundred foot expanse the vegetation seemed predominantly the fungoid forms of deeper Morrowind, while on this side leaf bearing trees were in the majority, their branches hung with a patchwork of autumn leaves ranging from yellow to dry brown. The road curved around the outhrusting bulge of a rock spur that fell down towards the bottom of the chasm. As she had hoped, it was the perfect place for an ambush.

Kris carefully climbed to the base of the ruins, pulling herself up the steep escarpment hand over hand. The thin trunks of trees provided good handholds, and wedging her feet behind their roots provided enough leverage. Only once during her climb did anyone pass on the road below, a farmer driving a wagon of produce towards the city, but his stooped back kept his eyes low and incurious. At the base of the edifice she found what she was looking for, a narrow culvert in the stone that once must have served as a drain. Years of neglect had choked it with dirt, but there was enough of a space for the slender woman to wriggle inside. Crouching with her back to the sky she whispered the words to the spell. Magicka surged through her body as she spoke the words in her mind and a small pink flame kindled between her palms. A single tongue flickered way to the south. Vorn was close. Very close. She let the spell collapse as triumph surged through her. After months of chasing him, after just missing him in Kerwin and Berle Hall, he was at last coming to her. Kris pulled her cloak tight around her body and settled in to wait.

It must have been two hours after sundown, when Kris jolted awake, her scouts reflexes pulling her from a shallow doze. The sky blazed with the unearthly glow of the aurora, pulsating shades of blue and green throwing the landscape into strange and queer relief. In the distance she dierned the sound that had woken her. The clatter of hooves on the decaying roadway. With a hunters care she crept to the opening of the culvert and drew a half dozen arrows from her quiver, pressing the points into the soil before her. That done she reached into her pouch and withdrew a small glass bottle and pulled the cork, draining its sour and thready contents. After a moment she felt her vision sharpen and her form blur. A cramp began to tug at her stomach, she couldn’t find all the ingredients she was used to in Morrowind, and some of the herbs they used here had unpleasant side effects. Well different unpleasant side effects to the ones from Cyrodil at any rate. The added nightsight was worth a little discomfort and she had worked through worse than a few cramps in the past. The potion was an old trick that the Legion taught its scouts. Though she knew both spells, the surge of magica might be detected by an alert foe.

The sound of hooves grew steadily along with another more intermittent sound, it took her a moment to recognise the crack of a whip echoing from the chasam wall. Her lips flattened into a frown, was Vorn bringing a wagon? If that were the case why would he be such a fool as to push his horses hard on this dangerous stretch of road. Like all questions, the answer would reveal it self if she watched and waited. With an abruptness that startled four horsemen rounded the southward bend. Three of them were tall slender figures dressed in black and gold robes. Thaelmor. Hatred and fear bubbled up in Kris stomach, cramping it far worse than the potion ever had. Thaelmor wizards had killed more of her comrades than she cared to remember, and there were three of them. The fourth man, was Vorn. He was tall blond and good looking, dressed in fine clothing that was going a touch threadbare at the cuffs. She could still see him laughing and joking with Titus and Ilmar, the night before he had betrayed the Legion. The urge to kill him boiled up inside her, pent up from months of tracking him. But no, she had to be smart if she wanted to survive. Behind the horsemen came a pair of Dunmer in shabby armor, one carried a large wooden pole with a rough rope hawser around it. The rope went back to a train of a dozen Argonian’s and Khajit connecting to each at a leather collar around the neck. Slaves. Another Dunmer was cracking a whip, more or less arbitrarily over the slaves heads. Even from her lofty vantage point, Kris could smell the sour reek of despair and fear.

“Talos curse it,” she whispered venemously, chewing her bottom lip. She had hoped to catch Vorn with one or two body guards, not with a contingent of Elven Wizards and a slave caravan. Part of her knew that she should let them pass, wait for another time when the odds were in her favor. That would be the Legion way. But the Legion was gone, and Vorn was right here.

The first arrow punched down through the leading elf’s collar bone, the steep angle driving the point down into the mass of arteries above the long. The sorceress fell backwards from her horse vomiting blood for the instant it took her heart to give out. Only the horses had time to scream before Kris’ second arrow took another of the Thaelmor in the belly, dropping him shrieking to the road clawing at his blood soaked robes. Chaos erupted below. The slaves screamed and ran, some pulling foward the others throwing themselves down against the The third wizard turned and lifted his palms towards the wooded hillside blasting out a stream of lightning that ignited brush and burst winter damp trees to fiery kindling. The wizard must have been aiming at random but by unhappy chance his first bolt nearly blew her head off. She ducked back into the shelter of the culvert and re-emerged as Vorn spurred his horse to a gallop, It leaped over the withing body of the gut shot wizard, shoes striking sparks on the uneven cobblestones. Kris loosed another arrow which flew short striking the horse in the spine. It shriek as its back legs collapse, the momentum torquing its body towards the ravine. Vorn stood in his steps like an Sentenliese guardsman and leapt free of the horse a moment before it slid screaming and screaming over the precipice to its death. Lightning flashed across the mouth of the culvert as the elf adjusted his spell, spraying Kris with hot shards of stone that sliced at her bear arms above her arches bracer. The spell must have illuminated the opening for the crackling energy continued to play across the narrow opening, bathing Kris in blue white light.

With every heart beat she could feel Vorn getting further away from her. Steeling herself she whispered a prayer to Dibella and leaped through the arcing spell craft. Leather burned and sizzled and she felt a sharp burn erupt across her left arm, but she was through and tumbling down the side of the escarpment. Like all Breton she had a natural resistance to Magicka but it wasn't something she cared to put to the test. Catching at trees she tried to slow her decent as she slid and skidded, rocks and trees tearing at her exposed flesh. For a miracle she kept her orientation well enough to hit the road on her feet. Her bow and quiver had been abandoned so she whipped out her battered sword. The wizard was only an arms length from her and she thrust her blade into his thigh in almost the same movement as her draw. The elf screamed and his spell collapsed, plunging the roadway into relative darkness. His horse, pricked by the tip of the blade, bolted along the roadway. Kris turned to give chase, heedless of the insurmountable advantage of the man on horseback, when a sharp stinging crack ripped at her left arm. The whip wielding dunmer guard jerked her towards him but she wrapped her arm around the cord and jerked hard. The dunmer stumbled forward and dropped the whip, evading her disemboweling stroke by inches. She thrust through his body as he clawed at a shortsword on his belt, sending him staggering back grasping at the greasy pink rope of his own entrails. The remaining two guardsman turned and fled in blind panic.

Kris’ lungs were burning with the exertion of the few minutes of frantic combat.She stumbled back towards the screaming Thaelmor and thrust mercifully through his neck, choking his screams off in a brief gurgle. She collapsed against the side of the embankment, bitterness and failure curdling her stomach as she glanced down the road that both Vorn and the wounded Thaelmor had escaped. She wanted to run Vorn down, but pursing him and his wizard ally was suicide. She sank to her haunches, wiping blood from a cut above her eyes, evidently taken unnoticed at some point in the frantic struggle. Her muscles felt like water and she badly wanted to relieve herself. Familiar sensations.

After a moment she registered the weight of eyes upon her and she looked up to find the slaves still roped together. The lead slave was trying to make his way towards one of the fallen daggers, but the rope connecting him to his more timid fellows prevented it.

“Talos curse me for a fool,” she muttered bitterly, working hard to catch her breath.

@POOHEAD189

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

The air car aced back over the city scape below. It was the day cycle now, though the only discernible difference was a slight lightening to the grey drizzle of rain on the dome above. Rene found that the rain was oddly soothing, even though he couldn’t have heard its fall above the bustle of the city. It reminded him of time spent at the hunting lodge at the Summer House, a somewhat inaccurate name for the several thousand acre property in the hills of northern Capella, on which he had spent four months of the year as a child. His family Swordmistress, a taciturn woman named Chaipon, had taken the young Renard on long excursions there, hunting for food and sleeping rough. His mother had objected to the practice but his father had overruled her with his normal curt decisiveness. The sound of the rain, whether it be on a tiled roof or a canopy of braided leaves was a balm to him.It was unlikely that even if he survived the rebellion that he would ever be able to take Solae to The Summer House, but the fantasy was an attractive one.

“Sir Rene,” A voice sounded in his head, startling him. Solae tensed beside him her hand frozen mid way through turning one of the pages. Ten had engaged the autopilot of the air car and was busily compiling a list, presumable of Ralch’s allies or people whom he was blackmailing him, evidently unaware of any disruption. The voice was a radio communication on his integral microphone. A fingernail sized transceiver that was surgically installed in his mastoid bone as part of Marine basic training. It wasn't particularly powerful, having been intended as a last ditch method for troops who for whatever reason had no communications gear with them. Most often it was used for emergency recalls from shore leave and other such minor emergencies.

“Reporting, Mia is that you?” Rene sub vocalized, his throat moving but not producing audible sound. While it was possible this might be some kind of trap, there was only one person who called him Sir Rene, well person was perhaps stretching the point somewhat.

“Yes Sir Rene, I apologize for reaching you this way.” Even through the com distortion of the mastoid implants limited bandwidth it sounded like a declaration of ‘I’ve been a naughty girl’ which was better confirmation of the transmission origin than any challenge question Rene could have come up with.

“Its fine Mia, go ahead,” he sub vocalized again. Solae arched an eyebrow but he made a small calming gesture with his right hand. Her eyes flicked forward towards Ten for a moment and then she returned to reading, or at least appeared to, her diplomats instincts correctly reading the situation.

“A hostile program has infiltrated the Bonaventure’s computer systems, my sensors also indicate physical surveillance,” Mia went on. Rene’s mind provided the breathless edge that the limited communication couldn’t.

“Are you… I mean are you in any danger?” Rene asked.

“I am not,” Mia returned, “I am a non standard addition and the intruder is not very sophisticated, I do not believe it is aware of my presence.” Rene didn’t know anything about computer intrusion, but he was willing to trust Mia’s assessment. An AI designed for a manor would be sufficiently weird to a standard intrusion program that it would be dismissed as junk or corruption. How Mia had managed to hijack radio equipment to contact him he couldn’t imagine but it wasnt important in the present moment.

“Can you eject the intruder Mia?” Rene asked, his mind whirling. A combined digital and physical intrusion almost certainly meant Duke Tan and his intelligence section. It also meant that though they had found their trail, they didn’t yet know precisely where they were, otherwise they would have no need to stake out the ship.

“Easily,” Mia replied with a hint of contempt, “Shall I do so.”

“Negative,” Rene responded quickly, “Just be ready to do so if we ask.”

“Will there be anything else Sir Rene?” Mia asked stretching the word anything out invitingly.

“Just keep us apprised if anything changes. Quentain out,” Rene responded, the words cutting the transmission.

“Trouble?” Solae whispered. Rene nodded before smiling tightly.

“What else is new,” he added before reaching forward to touch Ten on the shoulder. The criminal started and whirled, looking none to pleased to be touched. After a moment he smoothed out the expression.

“Change course,” Rene directed, “we can't go back to the house.”

“Why not?” Ten asked a little irritable, glancing between Solae and Rene as though he might discover something by their interplay.

“Our ship is under surveillance,” Rene explained to both Solae and Ten.

“That means your house might be also.”

“You can’t think that I…” Ten began to protest, as though a criminal selling them to the highest bidder was an unthinkable state of affairs.

“No, If you had tipped them off they wouldn’t bother watching the ship,” Rene explained, “But they might have tracked us to your house by now.” Rene didn’t think that likely, but nor was he willing to risk Solae’s life on an unnecessary gamble. Marine evasion training stressed that you should always imagine your enemy knew more than you suspected.

“We should ditch the car also, in case they…”

“I have protocols for this sort of thing,” Ten interupted, touching the control yoke and disengaging the autopilot.

The cruised apparently at random for another ten minutes, during which time Rene filled Solae and Ten in on the details of the situation, though he made no overt mention of Mia or his mastoid implant. The news that they could trust that Ten wasn’t or wasn’t yet in league with the Duke was welcome, but it would have been foolish to divulge any more information than he needed to. Ten was wise enough not to press for any further information. After a series of short cryptic radio transmissions Ten guided them down towards a large building bedecked in holographic displays of unsurpassed gaudiness.

“We are going to a casino?” Solae asked as they approached a large hangar in which a half dozen luxury air cars could be seen.

“The Twin Star is one of the finest casinos on all Zatis and it has absolutely no connection to me I regret to say.” The air car descended to a private landing pad set off from the main entrance by high wall designed for the privacy and protection of particularly paranoid visitors.

“Be ready to dismount promptly,” Ten advised as he set the car down with the finesse of a falling feather. The moment the skirts touched the pad a door opened in the wall and a trio of figures emerged. One was a woman dressed in the same dress as Solae, the second in a body guard suit and the third was a dead ringer for Ten. As Rene and Solae climbed from the car, their apparent doubles climbed in without exchanging a word. As the stepped through the doors the car lifted back into the sky headed out into the city with any following eyes none the wiser.

“Slick,” Rene complimented their host as he led them to a private elevator.

“I’m so glad you approve,” Ten simpered. “I have rooms booked here, well I paid to buy some existing bookings. Nothing connects to me, we should be safe until Mistress Solae is ready to make the next move.”

Penny's Interests

Added a skyrim plot!

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

“We need the room!” Antigony Bhast’s voice cracked like a gunshot. The darkened bed chamber erupted with the sound of two seperate female screams and a male curse that would have curdled milk. The lights flicked on to reveal an oppulent boudir of vast proportions, walls hung with expensive hand woven tapestries, each one of which might have been a craftsman’s masterwork. The centerpiece of the room was a large bed covered with luxurious Quantiri velvet. Atop the bed were three naked figures in various states of shock. One was the Countessa of Chandrapore, her pale white hair still piled in a fashionable beehive, was on all fours, naked, save for an expensive necklace with a vast silver-white star crystal that swung ponderously back and forth like a metronome before her impressive breasts. Behind her, paused in mid thrust, was the muscular form of Alexius Tan, his face mottled in rage, confusion and stymied lust. A second woman, a red head, of great beauty but more common stock and with more of an innate sense of modesty, was snatching up a pillow to cover her own considerable charms.

“We need the room,” Bhast repeated, her tone much altered from a heart beat before. She paused in the doorway, blocking the advance of the squad of soldiers behind her in order to maintain her Emperor’s dignity. The Contessa straightened, glaring daggers at Bhast for interrupting her rendezvous. Though the general was a seasoned enough politician not to show anything other than steely calm, she was woman enough that her loins tightened at the view of the naked and furious aristocrat.

“Out,” Tan commanded both women, his hand sliding off the Contessa’s sculpted rump as she straightened and stalked towards a side door. The redhead, less poised, bolted for a similar door on the other side of the chamber, leaving the general and the self styled Emperor alone in the bed chamber.

“This,” the Duke began in a cold dry voice, “Had better be good Antigony.” His voice was measured and cultured, the kind of voice one imagines issuing orders to execute all prisoners and then goes on to order from the wine list. Bhast braced herself to attention, a subconscious reaction developed over a career of being dressed down by superior officers rather than a conscious choice of her own.

“We found her my lord,” Bhast declared without preamble. The Duke reached for a garment of shimmering cloth that lay discarded by the bed. As he placed it to his body, the fabric seemed to flow and mould itself around his body, resolving into trousers of a vaguely military cut. Intelligent fabric was extremely expensive, its form fed to it by an AI to adjust to any circumstances, in this case the Dukes present need for modesty.

“Marquessa Falia?” The Duke asked, nodding Bhast into the room. She entered but made a gesture to the troops in the hallway beyond to hold their positions.

“I wouldn’t disturb your eminence for anyone else,” Bhast agreed, she tapped a command on her wrist unit. A holographic projection sprang to life, still images of Solae leaving the Bonaventure, followed by a similar shot of Rene. A later video, grainy and shaky, showed an unknown assailant firing at Solae before she was whisked away by unknown allies.

“These are recent?” he asked pulling on a shirt even as he spoke, the excitement evident in his voice.

“Twenty six hours ago, on Zatis,” Bhast replied, gesturing with a fingertip to the timestamp which glowed in response to the indicator.

“The courier ship we sent to investigate our friends got lucky and picked it up of the local net, they landed their personnel and made back here at best speed,” Bhast explained. That was a fast run, even for courier ship rigged for speed, but the captain had correctly judged the urgency of the situation. The vessel itself had sustained damage from the strain, but he had bought the urgent intelligence that was worth a hundred ships.

“Our advance element has their ship locked down, I want to take a company there immediately,” Bhast explained, nodding over her shoulder at the soldiers lining the corridor.

“It wont be comfortable but if we cram aboard the courier ship we can be there in thirty standard.” A thirty hour jump with men crammed into the hallways of a small starship was no ones idea of comfortable, particularly with weapons and gear stowed, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Do it,” the Duke declared then paused.

“And take control of the PEA the moment you hit the ground, this is clearly their goal.”

Bhast bowed.

“It shall be as you command your eminence.”

At Stars End

Dockside on Paradise

“Lieutenant Cykali, report to the bridge at once,” The PA crackled with Captain Keene’s voice. Even through the distortion of the aging ships address system it sounded peevish and irritated. Mave sighed and looked down at the work the corpsman was completing. The bullet wound was still red and puckered against he tan flesh, oddly reminiscent of the way a windshield starred when struck with a round. The pirate had been lucky to wing her when she and her detachment had burst into their lair, but he had been good too, she was glad that one of the crewmen following her had unloaded his shotgun into the fellow. As far as she was concerned there was no place in the universe for enemies who combined skill with good fortune.

“No rest for the wicked hey LT?” the corpsman said with a resigned chuckle. He had the liquid accent of a Tau Cettian though his service file claimed he was from Handle’s World. Many spacers had such inconsistencies in their personnel files. The were an itinerant lot and star travel was dangerous and unpleasant enough that no one asked two many questions when it came to skilled bodies. During the height of the recent war with the Terran Hegemony the fleet had taken to conscripting sailors left and right and anyone with an ident chip and all his limbs had been good enough for the recruiting boards. Most of those sailors had been paid of with the Peace and had found service in the merchant fleets when the warships they had crewed were mothballed or sold out of service. Those that remained were career men and women who had found something about the service that compesnated them in a way the higher wages of merchant service did not. In the case of Doc Pavara, it was that he was good at his job, and he liked being with other people who where good at theirs.

“Thanks doc,” Mave replied and hopped down of the table that folded down from the integral medical computer. Technician III Raj Pavara, allegedly from Handle’s World, wasn’t a doctor in any sense the civilized galaxy would acknowledge but he had nursed more wounded crew members back to health than Mave cared to think about it. A fleet medical technician rating wasn’t the same as being a physician but it was better than most people had out here on the edge of settled space and he probably had more actual medical knowledge than most of the charlatans an amateurs that called themselves doctors here abouts.

“It goes without saying that you should try to stay off that!” Pavara called as Mave strode out of the med bay and into the C-deck corridor.

“Yeah yeah, subject to the needs of the service etcetera,” she called back over her shoulder, doing her best to ignore the jolts of discomfort that radiated through her hip with each step. She was a trim woman in her mid twenties, of average height but with the lean whipcord muscles that years of the brutal work of interstellar travel. Her dark red brown hair was cut short to Fleet standard and her green eyes were bright and alert. The ship was almost deserted, most of the crew were on liberty at the moment, spending their pay in a orgy of drunken debauchery at the taverns and brothels of Dockside, the seedy village that had grown up around the harbor at Paradise. While starships could land anywhere, water was preferred as it soaked up the thrust of landing motors continual lift off and landing would eventually destroy even a concrete surface, and without constant refinishing they soon became pitted to use. Water was also the primary source of reaction mass feeding the ships fusion bottles as well as a safe working fluid for most of the hydraulic systems.

Those crewmen she did encounter were dressed as she was, in the grey mottled battledress of the Fleet, though the garment was military they were for the most part stained with lubricant and chemicals, marking them as members of a working ship rather than some rear echelon parade unit. Most of the glances were friendly, some were sympathetic, though a few were guardedly hostile. Captain Keene had his favorites among the crew, and while they never rose to the level of outright insubordination, they made their opinion of her known. A starship was a small community, and officers couldn’t afford to maintain distance from their spacers, the situation made it hard to maintain discipline under the best of circumstances, and an officer like Keene made the task almost impossible.

Suppressing a sigh, Mave climbed the aft companionway heading up to A deck and the bridge. The winding stairway jolted at her wound but she gritted her teeth and kept climbing. On commercial ships elevators were sometimes used, but on hard charging warships, the risk of a elevator tube torquing and trapping people inside were unacceptably high. By the time she reached the top her side was throbbing with pain, though somehow she doubted Captain Keene was in a mood to give her more time off in the infirmary. Time to face the music.

At Stars End

@Silent Showers

Neck Deep

Places

Vendik II - An agrarian world

People

Factions

The Federal Hegemony - ??

The Capellean League - ??