Penny

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-79

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-77

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-75

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

“Something isn’t right about this,” Junebug declared as she moved along the corridor opening one door after another with the barrel of her rifle. It appeared they were in a barracks of some sort, which might have been expected, but the rooms were cleaner than Junebug would have imagined from soldiers, hired or otherwise.

“What tipped you off? The literal monster?” Neil asked sardonically. Junebug chuckled as she opened the final door in the hallway. Inside was another room with a bed, refresher and computer console. Unlike the others they had passed this one was still live. Junebug gestured the others inside and closed the door before crossing to the computer. The screen appeared to be some kind of statistical data, though it didn’t make any sense at all to Junebug. Reaching into one of her pouches she withdrew a small memory cube and slotted it into the machine. As Taya had predicted the input was of a standard type of Cyloneika and she wasn’t forced to fiddle with the package of adaptors she had bought just in case it had been of more esoteric manufacture. The machine bought up a warning about the cubes contents which Junebug ignored with a click. The cube hummed for a moment and then a tell tale flicked green, informing her that Taya’s malware had been successfully uploaded. While she waited Junebug looked around the room. There were several dataslates, each apparently hooked to xenobiology databases of various kinds. Neil pulled open one of the drawers to reveal several neatly folded lab coats. He arched an eyebrow.

“Junebug?” Taya’s voice sounded in Sayeeda’s ear. The virus she had created was designed to give her access to the buildings communications suite so that she could link to them in real time from the orbiting Highlander. That part of the plan appeared to be on track.

“I’ve got some access but it's going to take time for me to crack all the systems,” the girl admitted.

“No problem,” Junebug told her, gesturing the others towards the door. It might be smarter to wait for intel rather than move, but Sayeeda didn’t like defensive positions and this hallway would be a bad place to get pinned down.

“I think this might be some kind of research facility,” Sayeeda said. That wasn’t what Gregorious had told them, which meant his intel was either dangerously bad, or more likely, deliberately false. That didn’t change the mission though. Taya could be depended upon to deal with Pradec’s files if they could be remotely reached, but that still left the man himself.

They pressed forward through the door at the end of the corridor, it opened onto the walkway above a two story room. Below them white coated men were working around holographic displays. On the screens Sayeeda could see footage of the jungle in which large alien looking creatures roamed. They were not of a piece, save that each one was large and none were native to Cyloneika. A large map with red tracking dots was on one of the walls.

“I don’t think we can get through this way,” Junebug said as she eased the door closed. As she spoke the doorway at the other end opened and two men carrying shot guns and wearing body armor stepped into the opposite end of the corridor. One opened his mouth to shout though probably more in confusion than alarm at this stage. Junebug lifted her rifle and fired twice, the discharge deafening in the confined hallway. Both men spun to the floor in a spray of blood, the displacer rounds pulping armor and tissue with equal disinterest. In the same motion she unhooked a flash grenade from her belt, pushed open the door and tossed it through the door, over the railing and down to the floor below. It went off with an actinic flash and a shattering boom they could feel even through the door.

“Here we go,” Junebug said and kicked the door open, rushing onto the walkway. The scientists below were clutching at their eyes and screaming. Several of the computers had been shattered by the concussion and a haze of smoke disrupted the holograms. Her helmet quickly scanned each figure, returning no matches for Pradec. There didn’t appear to be any armed opposition here so she rushed across the walkway towards another door deeper into the facility.

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-73
Back at you :)

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-71
:)

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

To Rene’s surprise, the act of sharing food with the Syshin seemed to do more to reassure the aliens of their benefactors good intentions than even the rescue had done. Whether this was an effect of Syshin cultural norms or something to do with their recent slavery was impossible to judge. Things settled into a routine over the next several days. Rene instructed others in the use of small arms, though in truth the range was too short to be of much use for rifles. Neither the Syshin or Rosaria had much natural talent for the business and their improvement was slow. Solae began to teach them the basics of Syshi, though judging from the expressions Yarue and Dasin made when they tried to pronounce the silabant sounds they were as unimpressed with the human’s progress as Rene was with their marksmanship. Even Solae frequently concealed a smile when Rene’s lack of tonal control radically changed the meaning of a word.

The two nobles discussed their plans in private after the arbitrary ships night began. Talking over points and sharing their frustrations between bouts of lovemaking in their cabin. Most pleasant were the discussions in which they talked of what the future might look like after the rebellion was put down. Those discussions inevitably assumed they both survived and that they emerged victorious, big variables by anyone's accounting, but they were human after all. The Empress’ largess had changed things radically for both of them and though Rene’s status remained somewhat uncertain, he couldn’t help but hope that he would be a more suitable mate for Solae after the dust settled. He knew that she didn’t care if he was nothing but a common soldier and, perhaps selfishly, he accepted that sacrifice if it meant they could be together, but he didn’t want to condemn her to a lifetime of sneers and innuendo that such a match would bring. Always the discussions worked themselves around to the same point. They just didn’t have enough information to know that would happen.

“Completion,” Rene announced as the Bonaventure’s jump drives cut out, the familiar starfield solidifying in front of the main viewport. Ranal Pandi was the closest Kalderi system to the human territory of the Eastern Cross, but even so it had been a considerable reach for the jump drives. Rene’s console showed yellow warning lights, indicating that the MacMillan count was well above the safe range, though not yet into the red. Almost immediately the number began to tick downward as exposure to the stable super-quantum universe began to normalize the effects of the jump. Yarue and Dasin had proven to be a considerable asset over the past few days, performing considerable maintenance on the ship. Neither of them were engineers, but both had more hands on experience with starships than Rene did and they were much better able to understand the instructions Mia provided.

Ranal Pindi was a spectacular system. A bright white star orbited a black hole at the systems center. Streamers of burning gas millions of miles long flowed from the star to its hungry neighbor like a celestial ribbon dance. The blackhole would eventually devour the star, though the timescale was so long that there would be little noticeable effect for the next billion years. The system had a half dozen planets, several gas giants and a pair of terrestrial worlds. One of the rocky worlds was uninhabitable, its proximity to the sun bathing it in radiation levels that would be lethal to Humans or Kalderi in a matter of moments, even if the temperatures, regularly close to 800 centigrade, wouldn’t have flash ignited their flesh. The second world was Ranal Pindi itself, temperate and well within the habitable range for humans though the air was somewhat drier than would have been ideal. There were no records to show whether it was naturally occurring or if the Kalderi had terraformed it but the biota was decidedly alien to human norms. Human traders were not permitted on Ranal Pindi itself, but one of the moons was reserved for what limited exchanges were made. Even there the human accessible sector was rather rigidly controlled by the Kalderi.

“They are hailing us,” Rene announced as his communications board lit up. There were only two vessels other than the Bonaventure on the sensors. A pair of Kalderi warships that orbited the planet, each one about a hundred thousand miles above the planet’s poles. The Bonaventure’s optics weren’t good enough to provide good imagery at this range, but Mia was able to sharpen the images considerably as well as to use stock footage of other Kalderi ships to fill in the blanks. Although of a size, neither ship bore much resemblance to the other. They were both of a tonnage that was somewhere between a destroyer and a cruiser in human terms, though their shining gold plated hulls and jewel like protrusions ended any closer comparison than that.

“I am patching them through Duchess,” Rene announced formally to Solae before mouthing the words ‘good luck’ and activating the comm circuit.

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-69
Yay!

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-67
(I like to think so!)

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

@Callousqueen
-65