Penny

The Pavonis Campaign - Warhammer 40000

"Command," Katiya mused as the started down the wall, keeping in the shadows of it as the sun sank below the horizon. The cries of rage and the screams of enemy wounded faded behind them. It pricked her soul to leave, while there were enemies standing and possibly, though unlikely, Arbities still alive in the ruin of their headquarters. If that were true the best thing she could do for them was to leave the area, give the mob a chance to fizzle out.

"It is not a Commissar's duty to command," she told Connors as they reached a small stone wall which ran out from the larger one. She nodded at the soldier who made a stirrup of his hands and boosted her up, she caught the top of the wall and scanned the far side of a moment for danger. It seemed to be a mix of habs and small businesses, but after the bomb blast and the gunfire people were keeping themselves inside, she pivoted and reached a gloved hand down for Connors who took it and leaped upwards, she let herself fall off the far side, her weight lifting the trooper up while his mass slowed her own decent.

"I am here only to advise, and right now, I advise that you follow me," she told him with a wintery Valhallan smile. The moved forward through the gathering darkness, sticking close to the wall to conceal themselves in its shadows. After a few hundred meters they came to a wide boulevard and Katiya waved Connors to a stop. A throng of people was marching down the boulevard towards the school. White robed ministorum priests were in the lead swinging censors, behind them came burly miners and manufactorum workers, holding banners aloft. The banners read: Him on Terra, Not Her in the Palace, and other protests against the governor. One of them was a fairly artistic rendering of the governor drinking the blood of a pale miner who had already been drained. Behind them followed a crowd chanting and holding torches aloft. Katiya flattened herself against the wall pleased for her dark coat to conceal her from view.

"It is going to be hard to get back to the school with this lot blocking the streets," Katiya said to Connors, the distant roar of other crowds could be heard, assuring her that it wasn't the only rally out in the streets tonight. There was a sense of wrongness about it that nagged at her.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Savachev screamed in pain.

"Hold her damn you," Rene snarled. The merchant was white faced, lifting the spacer was not a pleasant task. One hand was under the woman's shoulder, but the other was just below buttock, the burned flesh slid under hand, the grip lubricated by sera and damaged flesh. Bouradine swallowed hard but kept his grip. It wasn't Bouradine's fault really, the merchant was doing well enough given the task at hand, Rene simply didn't like Solae wandering around without him. It made sense, but he didn't really trust anyone to look out for Solae as well as he could. Part of that was skills, but devoted as the Syshin were, as much as Rosaria looked at her as something between a mother and a savior, no one loved the Duchess the way he did.

"One more second," Rene told Bouradine and nudged the backplate into place. Savachev was whimpering now, her body growing limp as the pain overloaded her system.

"Ok, down," Rene directed, lowering the spacer down into place. The armor was slightly too large, sized for Rene, in theory it was adjustable but the process was tedious and didn't really matter for this purpose. They settled Savachev down and Rene picked up the chest plate and pressed it into place, it clicked and there was a whir of seal engaging.

"Are you really with the Marines?" Bouradine asked. Rene looked up at him, forgetting for a moment that he was still wearing a combat helmet. The merchant was scared, all but babbling, inhabiting a world of fear wholly different from Rene's. What had he expected when he and Bel'sian eloped? Certainly not a crashed escape pod, and Imperial Duchess and being pressed into service as a medical orderly. All things considered Rene supposed he was doing surprisingly well. Instead of responding immedialey he raised his right sleeve to display the tattoo of the dagger crossed planet and the serial number marked into his flesh.

"Really," he confirmed tonelessly. The visor blinked a red alert as it resynced with his chest plate. A schematic of a human body occupied a portion of the head up display. Red warning lights lit up all over the body. Not Rene's body, Savachevs. It was possible to open the individual alerts if more information was required, though the real purpose of the sensors was to inform a squad medic and command group of soldiers status. Rene didn't need to open them to know that the spacer was in bad shape. The critical alert flashed in his visor and Rene activated the emergency medical pack. There was another soft hiss as auto injectors pumped antibiotics into Savachevs system. Judging by the white count and the blood pressure it was amazing the spacer was still alive. Whatever Bouradine had done had probably saved the woman's life. The spacers eyes snapped open as drugs and combat stims poured into her system.

"S..sir?" she moaned, her voice like a wood rasp. Her eyes tried to focus, but the left one seemed to refuse to do so, a side effect of the anti-shock meds artificially raising her blood pressure.

"Colonel Quentain," he identified himself, "keep calm and relax for stars sake, we have medical inbound, but I need you to stay calm till we can get you into a medi-comp." The spacer nodded and seemed to relax, her signals improving slightly.

"I can't feel my legs," she half whispered.

"No sweat, the analgesics are deployed by vasoconstrictors, targets where you are hurt, it isn't paralysis," Rene assured her. Savachev nodded, letting out a deep breath. She reached over and her hand pawed at a panel. Rene reached out and pulled the panel free. Beneath the panel was a data key, striped red and black. The emergency data dump. Any time a ship launched escape pods it dumped an encrypted copy of its core files onto a high capacity key. Rene took it and slid it into his pocket. As the senior officer it was his responsibility.

"Gory... gory... but a hell of a way to die..." Savachev moaned, sinking back into her fuge.

"We will get you help, just hang on," Rene told her, listening for the distant roar of the Bonaventure.

"Just hold on," he repeated under his breath.

Penny's Pencils

Returning to rp and chill

I read this as RP and Chilli and now I am hungry

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

The officers wardroom was a small space, just large enough for the table and chairs that had been bolted to the deck in its small walls. Kaiden as the new XO was offically being dined in by the company and had generously extended an invitation to Captain Micha who had graciously accepted. The Vickie was cruising in real space, making an orbit of MXD-41 and showing the flag of Cinnabar to all in the system. Theoretically this was to ward of pirates, but Sabatine doubted it would be very effective in that. Pirates were a scourge this far from the civilized worlds and whether a ship was a trader or a pirate largely depended on whether they thought one would be more profitable than the other at any given moment. All of the senior warrants as well as Ottis were present. The only absentee was midshipman Mckay, the most junior of the company thus, as propriety demanded, stuck on the bridge as the deck officer.

The meal had been sumptuous, roast meat prepared with local spices and thinly sliced vegetables in a rum and pepper sauce. Wine and rum from their last landfall had been plentiful and they were settling in for the dessert course of treacle putting with fresh custard. Byron might have a long ways to go as a spacer, but his talents as a mess steward were on full display. As the steaming pudding was unveiled, he circled the table and topped up drinks without being asked before midshipman Ottis stood and raised his glass in the traditional toast. The other officers followed suit careful not to bang their chairs against the bulkhead doors.

"To a bloody war or a sickly season," the youth declared and the others echoed him before downing their drinks. Given the circumstances the toast seemed particularly ominous, but each 'day' of ship time had its own toast and the RCN never deviated from tradition. They all resumed their seats as Byron began to dispense the pudding with a wooden serving spoon with a bladed edge.

"Speaking of impending hostilities sir," Sabatine began, "Ms Savarti did some digging into our runaway freighter and I think you were probably right in that it wasn't a pirate." Micha nodded agreeably, favoring her with a patronizing smile now that he felt she wasn't going to challenge him.

"As much as we might all wish for action, this is no time to be jumping at shadows," Micha replied sagely. Chief Savachev nodded but Helenna Graving looked disappointed. No doubt the gunner was more enthusiastic about the prospect of action against pirates than most of them. Even in fleet actions, plasma cannon were primarily defensive weapons, meant to nudge incoming missiles off target, but every gunner dreamed of being able to use them to rip open a lightly armored pirate at close range.

"Quite right sir," Sabatine agreed, following the plan that she and Kaiden had worked out together. Tilda had been surprisingly helpful as well, no doubt her background as an investigative journalist gave her an instinct for how to use such social engineering.

"According to Tilda," Kaiden broke in, taking up his part of the plan, "It looks like Tarlock Trading is probably just moving cargo off the books, stashing it on a moon somewhere out behind MXD-43 or one of the other gas giants. Probably figure war is coming and are looking to avoid confiscation of iridium. Smugglers," he concluded with an aristocratic sneer. Kaiden Caladwarden, the scion of a rich and powerful family, could hardly be expected to care about such money grubbing tactics as avoiding legal excise duties. Every other officer in the mess however, including Micha sat up a little straighter. Sabatine concealed a grin by draining her rum and lifting her glass for a refill. The rest of the plan should unfold without so much as another word.

"That would make whatever they are stashing out their subject to seizure and condemnation by a prize court wouldn't it?" Higgs asked, looking more than a little bleary eyed from the amount of liquor he had consumed. Kaiden had assured her that it wasn't necessary to bring him into the scheme, and she was pleased to see she had been right.

"It certainly would," Leyla Savachev agreed in her Xenos drawl as she mentally calculated what a chief engineers share of such a seizure might be. Doubtless that share was all the more inflated for being imaginary. Micha was rubbing his chin too. Micha didn't come from money or even the aristocracy, quite the opposite in fact, he had worked his way up through years of thankless peacetime service, only to find himself far from the action and chance for advancement when the last war broke out. Even on active service the pay of a senior lieutenant was not extravagant, not unless you won prize money and that didn't happen without action. Unless of course you found an excuse to seize a valuable cargo from smugglers.

"I'll bet you the prize court on Herculaneum would condem it no questions asked, as little trade as they have been getting lately," Graving speculated. The idea was clearly taking hold and Sabatine could almost feel the avarice take hold.

"Speaking of Herculaneum, if we put back in I'd like to see about replacing number three starboard, she stuck again during extraction," Sabatine interjected, steering the topic away from smuggling and prize money as Tilda had suggested. Kaiden raised his glass surreptitiously in salute. Sabatine had no doubt that by morning, the Captain would have not only found an excuse to sweep the system for smugglers caches, but be thoroughly convinced it was his own idea.

Penny's Pencils

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

Sabatine tried to ignore her dislike for Tilda, though it wasn't easy. Rather than focus on the woman's irritating intrusion into her carefully ordered world she focused on the task at hand. Despite her resolution to let it go, she couldn't put it out of her mind. For a long moment she scanned the documents.

"Imagine you are a pirate," she mused, taking a seat at the console beside Kaiden. She punched the console live and pulled up a plot of the system. The paths of all the ships appeared as lines, mapping trajectories.

"With this much traffic in the system, attacking a freighter is going to be hard. The second you extract everyone near you will scatter, plus most of these tubs are worthless anyway," she explained. Most of the freighters weren't even capable of entering the matrix anymore, if they ever had been able to. The hulls were worth something, and the crew possibly as slaves, but all in all only laden vessels with valuable cargos were worth the risk.

"You need to be precise when you attack, come out of the matrix close to a rich prize and snatch her before she can dive for the planet, moon I suppose," she went on. Kaiden was nodding following her train of thought.

"So you need a spotter, like our unusually observant freighter," he said musingly. It was Sabatine's turn to nod.

"If I were in charge, I'd set up a base on a moon behind one of the lesser gas giants, I could jump my spotter out behind it like she was leaving the system, then simply follow a reverse course back in once she extracted to give me my intel."

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene lowered his rifle with considerable relief, returning it to the attachment point on his chestplate so it hung muzzle down across his body at patrol rest. Everything they had seen of the man suggested he was clever and careful, and now they were beyond the moment of initial confrontation he would likely realize that his only real option was to go along with his new situation.

"...spacer...able spacer... Savachev..." came a whispered croak from the injured woman. All eyes turned towards her as she moaned feebly, her eyes fluttering open. She was in her mid thirties and had the muscular frame that one often saw on people who worked out to avoid the loss of muscle mass that accompanied extended periods in space. Her hair was dark, cut short in regulation fashion and, like the rest of her body covered in sweat.

"Sir... regret to..." the effort of speaking seemed to be almost more than she could bear and the hazed unfocused look of her eyes spoke to the delirium the infected burns had induced. Rene glanced into the corner to see an improvised waste bin filled with pieces of surgical cloth that had been used to wipe away pus and sera. Bouradine had expended the meager supply of antibiotics in his pods first aid kit, but the kit was only really intended for treating cuts and scrapes, not second degree burns. Several half spent doses of painkillers suggested that Bouradine had been rationing the pain killers in an attempt to keep the spacer comfortable as long as he could. That wouldn't have been much longer, but the delerium might have taken some of the pain away. The sap he was using appeared to be some kind of local antibiotic, but there was no way to deliever it to an infection that had already penetrated the tissues.

"Sir... report the loss off..." Savachev continued her breathing growing more labored. Rene stepped to the womans side, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Save your energy spacer, you can tell me all about it once we get you patched up," he told her in what he hoped was confident tone.

"If you move her, she might die," Bouradine objected, concern for the injured woman overwhelming his fear of his current situation. That spoke well of him in Rene's mind. A few pieces of the puzzle began to click into his head. Bouradine had arrived in orbit, probably with the intention of going to ground and waiting to be picked up by another trader or smuggler, only when he arrived in orbit he had picked up the distress beacon from the navy pod and put down beside it to try to help. That certainly banished any lingering thoughts of kidnapping as there was no need for him to put himself at risk.

"If we don't move her, she dies for sure," Rene responded, lifting his hand as Savachev lapsed into unconsciousness once more. Thanks to Ten's not entirely selfless generosity, the freighters medical suite was well stocked, and if they could get Savachev there in one piece she would live, the problem was that she ran a real risk of going into shock while she was being carried. In some regards it might be easier just to bring the Bonaventure here but the walking back and then flying here simply added time to that which it would take to carry the stricken spacer. Rene pondered several unsatisfactory choices in his mind, and then a rumble of thunder outside made the choice for him. Beyond the shelter of the pod, black clouds were gathering with ominous speed, seeming to spiral together almost like smoke. There was another peel of thunder and then heavy rain began to fall, first in a patter and then in an increasing downpour.

"We can't move her in the rain," Rene stated, "We need to bring the ship here asap." There were several things wrong with this plan too, but none of them could be helped.

"Yarue, head back to the ship and bring it here, as close as you can comfortably get," he directed. The Syshin blinked in consternation.

"I have had only a few lessons Si... Rene," he began correcting his use of the formal title to which Rene had no legal claim in any case, "I don't think I can fly the Bonaventure, perhaps Lady Solae..."

"We need her to retrieve Bel'sian, none of the rest of us can understand Kalderi," he interjected. Technically Bouradine could, or at least Rene presumed so, but although his misgivings about the trader were easing, he wasn't about to put anyone in a situation where they had to rely on his translations.

"There is a ground effect mode you can use, Mia will be able to help you, it is much simpler than lifting and landing the way we do when we go to orbit," he explained. That was stretching the truth a little, it was much simpler than a powered decent, but it would be no picnic in the rain. With Mia's help though, it should be possible.

"Get going," he ordered and the Syshin gave Solae a startled look before turning and vanishing into the rain which by now was an opaque grey sheet. Rene unslung his rifle and set it aside and began to peel of his armor.

"The armor has integral first aid gear," Rene explained as he cracked open the breastplate and wiggled out of it. The first aide suite was emergency field medicine, little more than hemostatic drugs, but it also contained adrenaline and antibiotic systems, designed to keep a soldier functional during what would be a crash for an unaided human.

"Bouradine, give her what is left of the pain meds if you will, strapping this on her with her burns won't be fun," he directed the trader. Rene's confidence seemed to infuse the man and he stepped quickly to the drug injectors and began to combine the doses. As soon as it was done he knelt and thrust the injector into a vein on the spacers left arm, dispensing the entire dose with a hiss of air.

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

The system was surprisingly busy, with two dozen or more small craft operating in a relatively tight space. Sabatine narrowed the plot position indicator and located the tramp freighter. Its high drive had cut off, an easy thing for sensors to register given the noisy electromagnetic signature of matter/antimatter annihilation. She frowned, that was an odd action so far from any obvious landing zone. The frieghters transponder identified her as the Brother Kamal, without a logged home port.

"Sir, I think the Kamal is about to enter the matrix," she reported a second before the ripple reported on the sensors and the ship vanished into the infinite bubble universes that surrounded the sidereal.

"Velocity at time of exit was too low for them to be going anywhere," Sabatine continued. Velocity could be multiplied by taking advantage of different constants of mass and energy, but you needed to have something to multiply to make the effort worth while.

"A local tramp spooked by the arrival of a warship, nothing more," Captain Micha replied. They were speaking over the command channel, a necessity given the noise of a warship under high drive acceleration, but she hadn't been aware Micha was monitoring the conversation though she shouldn't have been surpised.

"No flight plan sir," Sabatine reported her voice not quite a challenge but definitely disagreeing. Micha snorted.

"Please Lieutenant, this is the sticks, its a wonder anyone files anything at all," the captain replied.

"Aye sir, but he spotted us within second of our emerging from the matrix, pretty good sensor watch for a backwoods freighter," she countered.

"Probably just spooked because of the reports of pirate activity," Micha responded with a trace of asperity in his voice. That was a possibility of course, though it had been the only ship to react in such a fashion to their arrival. Sabatine let it go, in all likelyhood the ship would emerge from the matrix in the next few minutes a little abashed but better safe than sorry.

"Yes Sir," Sabatine responded with a shrug. Perhaps the captain was right, but there was something about the situation that sat poorly with her. She fought down a grin, maybe she was just as eager for action as Ottis was.

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

5 Days Later...

"Extracting," Sabatine reported, wincing for a moment as the inside of her eyelids were stretched over her entire head. The RCS Viceroy slid into the sidereal universe after its four day voyage. Sensors reported they were within a light second of the Bromley Belt, which was a damn fine piece of astrogation on Micha's part. Sabatine rubbed her eyes as she reviewed the sensor returns. Bromley was a minor mining system in the Raleigh Stars notable only for the iridium it produced. Iridium was an ultra dense ultra heat resistant metal which served for, among other things, the high drive thruster linings of starships. It was rare enough that its refining was profitable though in this case unpleasant. Bromley was a moon of a gas giant that rejoiced in the name of MXD-41. The giant's gravity had trapped an asteroid belt of unusual mineral wealth, which had lured humans to an otherwise unprofitable system. Bromley itself was an ice ball, its few settlements located around geothermal vents which sank deep into the worlds core, small starships collected asteroids, or blasted them appart in orbit and then hauled the rocks back to Bromley where industrial smelters reduced the rock to the marketable ore. Often enough the miners were family operations, a few extended households operation a couple of leaky tubs and installing a refinery in a crater in the ice sheathed surface blasted by a meteor.

"Multiple contacts ma'am," Ottis piped up, following procedure even though all the officers were no doubt studding the sensor feeds now they were back in sidereal space. Following the incident at their last planetfall Ottis appeared to be making an effort to smarten up, or perhaps the training at the academy was finally kicking in. Perhaps to the realisation that his crew wasn't going to leave him hanging had improved his outlook. Sabatine glanced sideways to where Kaiden sat at his console, monitoring the ship. They had spent most of the past five days in each others company, she had been surprised that Micha had set him to the anchorwatch as well, given the Captain's usual attitude towards the aristocracy, but Kaiden hadn't complained or sulked, merely done his duty as effectively as he could. Things could still grow tense between them, particularly as they settled into their new roles, but she no longer felt the flare of anger when he walked into the room she initially had. Of course this made her all the more aware of the shame she felt for her own part in the aftermath of their break up. In some ways she missed the anger, it had at least been easy to categorize.

"Mostly tramps, five hundred tons or less, one heavy ore mule, two thousand ton Marie Delgado out of Cofkan's World," Sabatine reported. The called up the sailing directions on Cofkan's World and was unsurprised to discover it was a world in the Sack Cluster, a group of worlds in which the Alliance and Cinnabar had little interest. The third rate power of Novi Svirdlosk claimed loose sovereignty over it, but Sabatine would have been surprised if anyone on Cokfan's World had ever hear of Novi Svirdlosk.

"Any sign of the pirates that were reported Sir?" Ottis asked looking hopefully towards Kaiden. That was the nominal reason for their village, though in truth it was more to keep mobile and provide a difficult target for a sudden Alliance incursion, but Sabatine couldn't blame the boy for being eager at the chance for action.