Penny

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

The rain had returned full force by the time Bianca completed her sweep. Already it was getting hard to make out any tracks, even muddy footprints becoming indistinct puddles. As nearly as Bianca could make out the posse of men they had more or less accidentally killed had been pursuing a single individual, probably the wizard, and cornered her at the abandoned temple. Or she had lured them here of course. If there was another force out there, they were clearly far ahead of it, rushing on to try to claim their prize. It was unlikely that the gaudily dressed aristocrats had abandoned the safety of an army to chase after someone who was clearly very dangerous, though one never could tell what a noble might take it into his empty gilded head to do. There seemed little point in putting out pickets in conditions where visibility was so bad but, eternally an optimist, Bianca stationed two men to the east along what had recently been a dirt track and was rapidly becoming a muddy stream. That was the most likely direction for any reinforcements to approach. That accomplished she returned to the temple where scouts and knights alike were cheerfully pillaging the dead and stacking their corpses against one wall. There was little hope of burning them and less hope of burying them but with any luck they would move on before the stink became too bad.

Calliope and Torm had retreated into the half ruined temple to get out of the rain. It was an off putting place to say the least. The roof of the pagoda was supported by massive pillars that had been carved with startling life like serpents that seemed to twine around them, wedge shaped heads striking at the ceiling. The stone floor had been polished smooth by centuries of bare feet, common pathways creating slight troughs in the stone. The overall impression was that of tentacles striking out of a calm sea. The walls were worse, at least those sections not overgown with the thorny bougainvillea that threatened to engulf the place. Every square inch of the walls had been covered with bas relief carvings that seemed to depict some ancient and bloody epic. A figure of a many armed goddess with four breasts seemed to be doing most of the killing, though in some panels she herself was killed or at least badly wounded by various combinations of what might have been gods or demons, their faces carved into leering masks of teeth and tongues. In the corners the carvings were crowded with piled bodies, as though the carnage had been swept out of the way or else the sculptor would have no room for the action. Bad it would have been under normal circumstances but Calliope, or Torm, had kindled a fire out of pieces of broken furniture and the flickering light danced across the carvings, making them seem to twist and writhe.

“Charming place,” Bianca observed, leaning close to look at a carving of the Goddess biting the head off a demon while pleasuring herself with one of her other hands.

“Jemel-Sha draws few worshipers, even here where ever rock has a score of devotees,” Calliope replied. “Her temples are always in the wilderness for to invoke her name too close to your home is said to invite disaster.”

“She is a war goddess then?” Bianca inquired, coming over to the fire and sitting herself down, allowing the heat to begin to dry her sodden clothing. Calliope made an equivocal so-so gesture with her left hand.

“In the Fan Cities it is always hard to know, sometimes it seems every god is the god of everything, and if they aren’t they have an avatar who is. Sometimes two avatars of a single good will even go to war. I doubt anyone has a coherent theology of it all. Jemel-Sha is a goddess of war, but also of entropy, rebirth, purification, renewel.. well renewal in the same way forest fires bring renewal.”

“Is that why you came here? To pray for forest fires?” Bianca asked. Calliope laughed but it was a cold and mirthless kind of a laugh.

“I came here because it was the only place I could think of to make a stand, even then the Seven Pricks would have had me if it hadn’t been for your timely intervention.”

“Seven Pricks?”

“I guess they are technically called the Seven Princely Advisors,” Calliope explained, “but usually people just call them the Seven Princes, or the Seven.. I guess they are the Six now that you kicked Curman Ji’s teeth in, may Jemel-Sha feast on his balls.” This last statement was made with a curious gesture in which Calliope kissed her finger tips then touched them to her forehead, then her heart. Bianca assumed this was some kind of religious gesture. The scout drew her pistol and cracked open the frizzon, laying it down facing the fire so the heat might dry the sodden powder, though the White Lady alone knew how she was going to keep it dry once she went back outside. From context Curman Ji had been in charge of the hit squad they had wiped out in front of the temple.

“You have my thanks for that,” Calliope added, though it sounded somewhat like an afterthought.

“It seemed like you might have had it covered,” Torm observed, eyeing the sorceress out of the corner of her eye. Calliope grimaced.

“Those men you saw were Thugee,” Calliope explained, refering to the muscular types rather than their perfumed overseers. “They train them to hunt down priests and wizards, they are resistant to magic, a combination of mental conditioning and warding tattoos.”

“You still seemed to be holding your won,” Bianca pointed out, remembering the animated stone tiger disemboweling one of the men on the path. Calliope grimaced slightly in the firelight, admitting to any kind of weakness obviously hurt the woman.

“You have to sleep sometime,” she admitted.

“Why were they after you in the first place?” Bianca asked, changing the subject though potential not to one any more pleasant to the sorceress. This brought on another smile, though there was something different in this one.

“I was the Prince of Shivapor until those seven pricks fomented a rebellion,” she admitted.

“Prince?” Bianca asked with a cocked eyebrow. Calliope waved the distinction away.

“In this dialect Prince is applied to men and women both, it is a male noun but they apply it to anyone who is… princing I suppose. By the same token you are Prince if you rule regardless of your actual birth. Oh they care about caste of course. There are as many castes as there are gods, though broadly they break down into priests, nobles, warriors, artisans, and farmers. Not that this is determinative you understand, there are warriors who are princes, even an artisan in Kalingareae, I think he used to be a shipwright? You get enough power and they will hold their nose and dine with you despite you ‘ritual impurity’ or whatever,” Calliope explained. Bianca shruged her shoulders. She had visited many lands during her career with the Silver Swords and found the complexities of local life and religion to be both baffling and largely irrelevant.

“You aren’t a local I take it?” Bianca asked, more for something to say than from any real sense of interest. Calliope was pale and looked more like Torm racially than she did any of the bodies piled up against the temple wall. It had taken a moment for Bianca to notice that, not because it wasn’t obvious, but because she was used to the Company which held men and women of every nationality not to mention dwarves who were not human at all. Homogenous populations were not something that was part of her mental architecture.

“Oh Stars no, I’m from Betony, came out here a few years ago working for a spice trader and decided I could do better,” Calliope said. A wizard travelling with a spice trader who set herself up as a queen in only a few years? There was certainly a great story there. Come to think of it wasn’t Torm from somewhere near there?

“So what are you planning to do now? I doubt these Seven Pricks are just going to let things go,” Torm said, taking a drink from a waterskin which he passed to Bianca. She took a drink as well and was pleased to discover the water had been cut with palm wine, an old cavalryman’s trick to keep the dust from choking them. Calliope leaned forward, her eyes dark and predatory.

“Well now that I have met you, I was hoping to pay you a small fortune to help me take my city back…”

Is it just me, or are profiles 10 years or older kinda terrifying?

Luckily I'm not that old.... (chuckles nervously)

Discovery: A Broken Galaxy

@Byte

The Arcadian - 24 September 2190 - Main Engineering Deck

Douglas 'Hobby' Hobbs

“Yeah old guy doesn’t miss too many meals,” Chalkin said, giving the Medic a wan smile. The pair of techs seized Hobby by the shoulders of his jumpsuit and dragged him up against the wall.Hobby’s eyes cracked open and he sucked in a huge breath of smoky air which made him cough.

“Well I’m ten pounds lighter than I was a minute ago thanks to you,” the old Chief snarked at Chalkin, waggling the stump of his arm to prove the point. The tech laughed but the relief in his voice was evident for all to hear. Hobby thought the young idiot might have hugged him if he had space to do so.

“Yeah well no fucking charge,” Chalkin joked weakly
The engineering bay was unusually quiet as every member of the crew had downed tools to gawk, first at the accident and now at the surprisingly digital medical drama. Hobby glared at them.

“Hey! Someone declare a fucking holiday? Get back to work!” Hobby roared, he went pale and started to cough.

“Fucking…” he wheezed.

“Not as much blood as the first time…” Hobby observed looking sadly down at the mangled mass of electronics, “But fuck me if it doesn’t half sting.”

“Someone rebalance the god damned gas mix!” he roared.

“Right right boss we are on it, you just listen to the nice medic lady,” Chalkin calmed.

“Listen here you little prick, if my arm wasn’t smashed under a half ton of steel I’d pick it up and beat you to death with it,” Hobby hissed through a clench toothed smile.

“Right… I'm rebalancing the gases as we speak, don’t even worry about it!” Chalkin vanished so fast he almost literally left his outline in the smoke, the trick sparing him from another round of caustic insults.

“The kid will go far.. If I don't strangle him to death,” Hobby observed then turned his gaze to the doctor.

“Well what about it doc?” he asked Anna through pursed lips. By now a sheen of sweat was glistening beneath his thinning hair.

“Will I ever play the violin again?”

Black Serpents: Warhammer RP

The Manse Calliope had rented stood across the street from the Garden of Morr. The house, an impressive pile of gray stone, was aging, its tiled roof defended by crumbling gargoyles and nesting ravens. It was surrounded by overgrown gardens that would have been a luxury in a more popular district. A low stone wall surmounted with wrought iron surrounded it, giving it a slightly menacing air. Large elms reached out over the fence, dropping leaves onto passing travellers as though straining to grasp them.

“You sure can pick them,” Kayden said, somewhat grumpily, “I think I might turn to stone if we found ourselves a nice sun drenched villa.”

The next several days passed uneventfully, save for modifications Calliope was making to her rented house. In accordance with her instructions the place had been cleaned and furnished before she had arrived but she still insisted on inspecting every room and allowed no staff within the walls. This left a great deal of the menial work to whichever of Kayden’s troops managed to get themselves arrested usually for brawling or starting fights with the local watch. This, fortunately or otherwise, provided more than enough bodies to keep the place clean. Calliope spent long hours walking each room and also making circuits of the grounds, occasionally touching the wall or running her hand over a section of masonry. As always she refused to explain her actions but there was a general consensus that she was laying protective spells on the house. That made everyone, with the possible exceptions of Mesmer and Morek, more than a little nervous. The top floor attic space she reserved for herself and forbade anyone to enter, a command that probably would have been unnecessary even without the dozens of ravens that seemed to constantly be in attendance.

“You are welcome to find other accomadation more befiting to you station,” Otto told Kayden snidely.

“Look on the bright side,” Calliope added, making a guesture to encompass the Gardens of Morr, “quiet neighbours, close to the Temple…” The black basalt dome of the Temple of Morr was visible on the other side of the gardens a thin stream of offatory smoke rising from it to join the hazy miasma that seemed to cling to the city. It was not one of the great temples of the Empire archiecturally but like everything in Nuln it felt the need to be large and imposing. The gates to the manor were open and in the cobble stone circle stood two conveyances. One was an elegant carriage in polished chestnut inlaid with gilt trimmings and crimson curtains. The other was a functional but heavily built wagon with an iron cage over the back drawn by four massive dray horses. A dozen men in muted red tabards surrounded it armed with swords and large shields. If Calliope was surprised to see them she didn’t show it, continuing at her stately pace until they joined the company beyond the gates. As she reigned in her horse, a finely dressed man got out of the carriage. He had been muscular in his youth but was obviously going heavy with good food and a lesiurely lifestyle.

“Lady Blackwood,” he said unctiously, “a great pleasure to meet you at last.”

“Yes it is! Yes It IS!” cawed the Raven on Calliope’s shoulder. She absently reached up and scratched the bird.

“Adlebert Bartholomew Bosh I presume?” Calliope asked as Mesmer helped her from her horse and took up a postion to her left.

“You presume correctly madame,” the man, Bosh, replied nervously, clearly resisting the urge to tug at a too tight collar at such an overly precise use of his name. Stories abounded about what a Wizard could do if they knew your true name and those stories rarely ended well.

“You have seen to my directives then?” Calliope enquired, as dismissive of small talk as ever. Bosh nodded and produced a folded parchment from his ermine trimmed coat and extended it to her. Calliope opened it, scanned it, then handed it to Mesmer who tucked it away into a pouch.

“Kliendorf and Bosh prides itself on punctiliousness and discression,” Bosh said with a self important simper. Calliope’s returning smile was so slight it would have been missed by most.

“That is why I choose you of course,” Calliope responded, a slight ironic smirk in her words. It went right over Bosh’s head and he bowed and looked pleased at the compliment.

“Would you like to inspect the uh…” Bosh made a guesture to the wagon. Calliope glanced at it and shook her head.

“You are one hundred and thirty four gelt short, but you may recompense me by leaving the wagon,” Calliope informed him. Bosh’s mouth worked open and closed like a landed fish but after a moment he composed himself and bowed.

“Very well my Lady, if you have any furth need of Kliendorf and Bosh it would be our pleasure to serve.”

“Yes it would, yes it would,” cawed the raven. Bosh bowed and all but scrambled back into his carriage, a moment later both it and the file of guards clattered out the gates. At a word from Otto two of the knights closed it after them and lowered a wooden bar to seal it.

“A hundred and thirty four gelt short of what?” Kayden asked. Calliope indicated the wagon with a nod of her chin and Kayden climbed up onto the back. Inside were a dozen iron hopped barrels. He prized the top one with a knife and let out a low whistle. The barrels were filled with silver coins that glittered in the sunlight. If every barrel contained the same amount, the wagon represented a small fortune.

“Pay for you and your men, I am sure they will enjoy their leave more with coin in their pockets,” Calliope suggested. Kayden nodded his head, running his hands through the silver with a pleasing clink. Calliope noted the surprised look on his face.

“You didn’t think I would string you along with promises forever did you?” she asked, arching her eyebrow.

“It happens more often than you think,” Kayden replied, the mercenary’s cynicism clear in his voice.

“If you wish you may deposit your share with one of the counting houses here, though I would advise against using Kliendorf and Bosh,” Calliope continued. Kayden frowned and turned to her, allowing the coins to trickle through his fingers back into the barrel.

“Why, you banked with them,” Kayden pointed out. Calliope quirked a cruel smile, but the only response was the cawing laughter of several dozen ravens.

__________________________________

Almost from the moment they arrived a steady stream of footmen began to appear bearing calling cards and invitations. Calliope coldly accepted them but made no reply to any of them. Predictably her reclusiveness began to attract invitations from persons of increasingly high rank. Calliope continued to ignore them, spending long hours sequestered in her attic or walking the Gardens of Morr. She collected fallen wood from the elm trees and forbid the burning of anything save coal, which was plentiful in the city if more expensive than timber. She also began to whittle the wood into odd geometric shapes each the size of a human thumb. Mesmer was seen coming and going from the attic, carting up sacks of who knew what.

By the time a week had gone by the troops were beginning to grow rowdy. Many of them had spent their pay advances already and the number of men on ‘house duty’ was growing. Kayden, accustomed to being kept in the dark, bore it stoically. Calliope ate breakfast each morning, the sorceress seeming to subsist almost entirely on pomegranates and black coffee, and discussed news from across the Empire. There were rumors of a necromancer in Sylvania, though such rumors were common enough. The harvest was said to be poor in Reikland and the Emperor was bracing for trouble as he was forced to lean harder on his provinces to feed the heartland. A Brettonian treasure fleet had been caught in a gale in the Sea of Claws and had gone to the bottom. They discussed all these rumors and more. As always Calliope’s interest seemed fixed on Averland and even local gossip about that province was precious too her. Not that this stopped her from ignoring the invitations of several minor nobles from that prosperous province.

Finally, at breakfast on the eighth day, a card arrived that broke Calliope’s apparent determination to remain impassive. It was a gilt encrusted parchment bearing the seal of Baron Eustache Hollerman, inviting Lady Calliope Blackwood and companions to dine the following night. Calliope sat down her coffee and turned to Mesmer. She wrote a quick reply in her elegant spidery hand and scattered sand over it before rolling it up and sealing it with a blob of purple wax from a candle.

“Send a man to tell the Baron and his Lady wife, that we would be delighted to attend,” she told the grim servant. Mesmer nodded and hurried off.

“We really ought to train a couple of your girls to impersonate ladies in waiting,” she mused. Calliope’s party, swollen by Kayden’s mercenaries, was decidedly light on anyone who might be considered genteel, her knights not included.

“I think I’d have to pay a bonus to get them into dresses,” Kayden replied in a neutral tone. Calliope made a dismissive gesture.

“Speaking of bonuses, please bring ten more of your men into the house tonight, make sure that includes Francesca, and don’t include anyone who had a sibling die in childhood,” she instructed, then she paused before continuing as though it were the most natural segway in the world, “and find some clothes that emphasise your princely rank, you know something garish and border-princy, ruffles and plumes and what not,” she continued, casually insulting.

“My Lady,” Otto began, “is a mercenary captain really an appropriate guest?”

“Well I can’t very well show up alone,” Calliope objected “and I need someone vital and handsome.”

“Why?” Kayden demanded. Calliope looked up at him as though surprised he had spoken.

“Hmmm?”

“Why do you need someone vital and handsome?” he demanded. Calliope plucked a pomegranate seed between two fingernails and popped it into her mouth.

“Because unless I very much miss my guess, the Baroness Hollerman will want to seduce you.”

Discovery: A Broken Galaxy

@Byte All intervening time is Hobby coming up with new ways to call Chalkin an idiot :p

Discovery: A Broken Galaxy

@ihinka Awesome, love having a diver!

Malleus Maleficarum: Tales of the Grim and Macabre

The Gypsys were a travelling people. Once they had roamed half the world in their covered wagons. Emmarelda had some distant memories of those days but she had been young before the convulsions of the civil war made travel unsafe. The Gypsys had retreated into the Carnival becoming a fixture of urban life. Every so often one of the elders suggested returning to the road but there was little appetite for it. Emmarelda thoroughly agreed with the younger crowd. Who would leave a warm house to ride through the night in the rain. She gripped Wil around the middle laying her head against his back to try and keep the rain from her eyes. This strategy did little to keep her dry but it kept the water out of her eyes.

She didn’t quite fall asleep but when she opened her eyes the eastern sky was beginning to grow light. Wil was guiding the horse up a long shale path that wound its way up a bluff. At the top of the hill stood an ancient looking light house. A mirrored beam stabbed out into the rainy darkness but it didn’t rotate as it should. It gave the place the look of a corpse, eyes fixed in death. Emmarelda shiverd as Wil reigned in the exhausted horse at the base of the lighthouse. The door hung open, banging forlornly in the gusty storm tossed air.

“Abandoned?” Emmarelda asked. Wil shook his head and nodded towards a dilapidated stable where a horse lay among a pile of bloody hay. Emmarelda was no veterinarian but she wagered that the cause of death was the giant bite in its throat. Wil slid off the horse and drew his sword, eyes darting around.

“Are we too late?” he asked.

“I’m not sure…” Emmarelda replied, climbing down beside him. There was a fay energy about the place, but it didn’t seem like the energy of a man.

“Let’s climb,” she suggested and followed Wil into the building. They climbed the winding steps till they reached the top where a vast oil lamp guttered on the last of its oil. The view out over the gray sea was breathtaking, white caps rolled out amidst surging storm clouds that flickered with distant lightning.

“We are too late,” Emmarelda said somberly, extending her hand to point down the coast. A quarter mile distant, a ship was run aground on a spur of jagged rocks. Her rigging was shredded and ragged but there was no doubt it was the same ship from the crystal ball. Emmarelda moved to a spy glass mounted on a tripod and turned it the ship. It was a good glass, powerful enough that she could read the lettering on the ships prow: Demeter.

“What do we do now, can you still do your ritual?” he demanded.

“Maybe… maybe something a little different… I need to find a gallows tree and I’ll need you to defend me,” she explained.

“Defend you from what?” he asked. As if on queue a bone chilling howl came from somewhere close at hand. Emmarelda swallowed hard.

“Whatever comes,” she said simply.

Discovery: A Broken Galaxy

September 24, 2190
Polaris System
Shuttle LV-426, Main Troop Bay

Major Kashvi Sikander Sadek - Mongoose Actual

A momentary ripple went through the marines. It wasn’t noticeable through their armor but Kashvi saw it on the SBR in her HUD. They had hesitated because she had ordered them to keep weapons safe, but if the XO had other ideas… well worse things happened in wartime.
“You heard the XO,” she called, flicking her carbine live. There was a hum as the coils energized, a hum that redoubled as every marine on board followed suit.

SBR or squad bio readout allowed her to monitor heart rate, blood pressure and a half dozen other bio markers for every member of her squad. The information available to a commander who knew how to use her armors integrated systems was immense. With the blink of her eyelid she could learn anything about any of her people, see what they saw, hear what they heard, even judge their emotional states. It conveyed huge advantages if you could manage all that data but it posed similarly large risks. Some officers became lost in the miniature and forgot that their primary role was to lead, others developed an unhealthy detachment, as though war was a simulation that could be managed if you just monitored enough variables, and that their men were just digital tokens they could move around. Kashvi tended to the second school but suppressed the habit as much as she could. As far as she was concerned war was a game, but the secret to winning wasn’t moving electrons around.

“Remember what I said, anyone pops off without my say so, will spend the rest of the tour in the brig!”

LIDAR images began to play across her visor painting the inside of the bay in golden wireframe. The feed glitched several times, as though the LIDAR was confused or suffering from reflections. That happend alot with irregular spaces, like asteroid caverns or industrial spaces. Micro twitches of Kashvi’s eyes began assigning waypoints to her men, each one turning from gold to green as she received acknowledgement from each soldier. Figures sprang to life, estimating gas use and oxygen consumption for each soldier. She shrank it away with a blink. Vacuum commandos they were not, but this mission would need to go very wrong before air consumption variances mattered.
Kashvi was surprised to find herself keyed up. For most of her troops this would be their first drop whereas their commander had been on scores. There was a thrill she had rarely felt when bullets weren’t flying. This was something genuinely new, something neither she, nor anyone else had ever done. This would be one for the history books so she better not fuck it up.

“Thirty seconds!” she called, rather unnecessarily as every marine had the countdown running on their HUD. Tuna time. The last few seconds of a drop, when any hidden defences could open up and scratch them all like meat in a tin. For a second Kashvi saw fire spreading through the bay as burning aluminum spalled off the inner hull in gorgeous flashes of color, cutting down half her squad in a few seconds, Kandi’s grenade launcher magazine cooked off and… the flashback passed and she was back in the game, her skin hot and her nerves on the razors edge.

“You ok Skipper?” Sergeant Charming asked. He was in the other shuttle and using the command push they shared.

“Got some anomalous sensor readings on your SBR.” Apparently she wasn’t the only one who risked the information glut. Kali help her, Kandi had been dead three years now.. four?

“Four-A Top, maybe sensor shadow from the alien vessel,” she replied in a calm that one only learned under shellfire. “Is your team ready to deploy.”

“Aye Major, prepped and popped,” he replied, the boyish enthusiasm in his voice evident even under the side band compression of the comms circuit. He was a good non-com and she was glad he was leading the second team, even if it was unwise to have both senior marines on the same mission.

“Ten seconds! Brace for the turn!” Kashvi snapped, focusing herself on the task at hand. She slowed her breathing, manually checked her weapon, and waggled her back to make sure her webbing and gear hadn’t caught on anything. The other marines were doing the same, looking like a pack of dogs shaking off fleas.

“Brace for the turn aye!” a chorus of responses came from her men. Each marine locked themselves in place, both boots and one gauntlet secured to form a three point hold, their free arms keeping their rifles at the vertical. Kashvi assumed the civilians were doing something similar but there was no more time to worry about that. The shuttle bucked violently as the retros kicked in, spinning it 180 degrees so it was aft on but still rushing towards the bay. A second later the thrusters lit and everyone rocked under the force of the decel. Kashvi pursed her lips in silent reproof. This should be faster, the pilot was unnecessarily prolonging the approach, leaving the vulnerable to enemy… but there were no enemy. Maybe there were no enemy. This time.

As the timer hit zero Kashvi pulled down on the release lever and the rear door of they shuttle crashed open, revealing the bay of the alien vessel. It was a disturbing scene. The architecture of the ship seemed warped, as though the designers had despised right angles and parallel surfaces. The walls were dark and might have had a subtle green cast, though it was difficult to tell with the only source of illumination the thruster wash and running lights. Long tapering pillars extended upwards from the deck and downwards from the ceiling like stalactites. They seemed to be etched with something, crystal or some kind of synthetic that reminded Kashvi of circuit diagrams. The time for observation ended as her timer hit zero.

“Execute, Execute, Jump, Jump, Jump!” Kashvi ordered, then suited action to words, leaping from the back of the decelerating shuttle under the power of her jump pack. The sensation of free fall was glorious and her lips curled back in a feral grin as she flew across the bay, following the ballistic line to her assigned point, midway up one of the stalactite things. She flared at the last second and burned, hitting it at the speed of a brisk jog. She slapped a magnetic gauntlet down and twisted herself onto it, with a flex of her torso muscles. People thought training in zero G wasted the muscles. Those people had never been to jump school. She horsed the barrel of her rifle around to cover her assigned target, one of the three cave-like exits which seemed to lead deeper into the ship. She didn’t look around, excess motion was the enemy in zero-g, but the assignment tabs began to toggle green informing her that the rest of the squad was in position. An eyeblink summoned the squads gun cam footage, then just as quickly dismissed it. Everyone had made their jump, even if Bashisville was a fraction slow.

“XO this is Mongoose Actual, LZ is secure,” she reported. A moment later the dropship settled to the deck, the jolt audible as shock transmitted through the deck. Kashvi let out an exhilarated breath, then blinked her HUD away, enjoying the simple pleasure of looking down range through her holographic sights.

Discovery: A Broken Galaxy

Is there gravity?

Discovery: A Broken Galaxy

@UFRSivio My question is more can I establish things about the alien ship without stepping on your toes? If I say it is an organic carapace and you want it to be made out of radioactive super metal that might be an problem.