Starlance

Stargate Tempest - Maiden Voyage

Another Person, checking in.

Innocence Lost: Space Western Science Fantasy (Temporarily Open Again!)

After spending her childhood on a subterranean colony without ever seeing the sky, half a war on planets with alien ecosystems and the other half on human planets torn apart by a losing war, Rachel enjoyed the trek through an ecosystem close to her ancestral home that, although in the middle of a revolution, showed no signs of carpet, or worse, orbital bombardment. Yet, anyway. And so, as they walked towards the wrecked ship, and possible death, she quietly begun to hum a tune she knew from long ago, back when she’d go to a small club a couple levels above her home every Friday and leave several hours later with the possessions of several strangers in her pockets. Good times, all things considered. Maybe when this was all over, those times could return. She could affect people’s minds, stealing stuff has never been easier.

She stopped when she started to hear distant sounds of the enemy encampment. As they got closer, more could be picked apart - conversations, some machinery. Getting into the bay was far easier than expected. The tank crewmen must have been looking the other way. Oh well, their loss. She took stock of flammable things in their surrounding, but was interrupted by a shift in the behavior of the troops. No way they’ve been found. Whoever was watching them, according to John, must’ve alerted the garrison to their presence. That’s done it, the first person to see them would become a meatshield, the others would become smears on the walls. And then they were upon them.

The first poor sod to lay his eyes on the group would quickly find himself suspended head down in midair between the rebels and his Ascendancy comrades. His armor and body should protect them from fire from that particular direction, but just in case meatshield’s friends had enough wits between them to realize what their grenades were for - especially since the three of them threw proper spacing out the window like a bunch of amateurs - she telekinetically grabbed one of the other soldiers and used him to sweep the others in that group off their feet. They would be back up in a few seconds, time to start cleaning house and hope the Ork, or anyone, for all she cared, would deal with that tank, and fast.

“Sniper fire.” she warned her compatriots, throwing one of the Ascendancy soldiers into the tank with bonecrushing force. Maybe the armor protected him, she wasn’t familiar with that model, but the lack of movement didn’t look good for the man. “Don’t know where it’s coming from, but we’re not the target.” If the round came at them, they’d hear the characteristic crack as the supersonic projectile passed by, but she only heard a distant *pop* of a rifle. Since Reisus heard her hushed ‘elevator’ comment across a busy room when they first met, she suspected he would be able to hear the shot, and thus saw no need to warn the other team. After all, if they were the targets of the mysterious marksman, they’d all know beyond any doubt. In the thick of the fighting, she paid no attention to the muffled explosion as the jammer exploded above the wreck.

Having cleared their left side, the meatshield has outlived his usefulness. Turning him around, Rachel checked his rank. “Aww, a common grunt, I hoped to snatch an officer.” she muttered, disappointed, and sent the man flying towards the tank. The end of his semi angered, semi panicked scream accompanied by a hollow thud indicated the end of his short flight. “Everyone else doing OK?” she checked the rest fo the group, particularly concerned for the Ork due to his size.

Innocence Lost: Space Western Science Fantasy (Temporarily Open Again!)

If Legion wasn’t a machine, she would have to buy him a drink. Well, she’d have to steal money to buy him a drink, old habits and all. Since he did some tech magic to her ears, all of a sudden she started noticing sounds in the background noise of the ship she was previously not aware of. Chances of being flanked by anyone while out on the job just went down significantly.

”So, I’m guessing setting fire to the entire area of a planet with a potentially friendly population, not to mention the ship some of our mates have to get to and then out of is not a good distraction. No guarantees for the bad guy mooks though.” she quipped upon John’s arrival. Damn shame there was no time to properly set up. Even the most humble foxhole would have been better than being stuck with whatever concealment or cover the environment provided, hoping they would focus on the poor Ork and pay no attention to her. She could already smell more drinks would need buying when they were done here. “And no offense to the big lad here,” She gestured to Orky following John’s comment about not being able to withstand damage, “but I doubt the tanks will care either way. How do we approach this, divide and conquer?”

Innocence Lost: Space Western Science Fantasy (Temporarily Open Again!)

Rachel knew her prosthetics were sensitive to specific environmental conditions and electromagnetic interference, but she didn’t expect to be forbidden from taking part in the mission. It would seem her captors made sure she was healthy, then got lazy and the lack of maintenance while she was imprisoned must have taken its toll on the tech. “That bad? Well, if you have time to do it, please do. I don’t see a reason to wait, especially if it was to get worse. I’d like to avoid turning mostly deaf again, believe it or not it kind of blows.” She hoped it wouldn’t go that far, the four days after the accident were enough for one lifetime.

---

Although ‘a few AT coilguns’ could only do so much against an organized group consisting of a tank, or an entire platoon, and the infantry escorts, at least they would not be completely defenseless once the sixty ton death machines got a bead on them. Merely knowing they had them made marching into no man’s land so much easier. Something recoilless would have been nice, but not every day was Sunday.

She didn’t mind being on the decoy team all that much. Despite her wartime squad’s primary purpose being reconnaissance and information gathering, the latter courtesy of her abilities, they had been tasked on many occasions to make as much noise as possible so others could go about their business undisturbed. It was only a shame they had to walk all the way there. And the return trip would be even worse, tired and potentially in contact with the remaining enemies, maybe even QRF.

“At least we’ll have surprise on our side at the start of the fight.” she thought out loud, “Bad guys likely won’t expect more than pissed off peasants and it will be too late when they learn the hard truth.”

Innocence Lost: Space Western Science Fantasy (Temporarily Open Again!)

@Stern Algorithm

Rachel took her time going to see Legion. At first she didn’t see a point in fixing something that isn’t broken, especially since the Rau’ve were quite thorough in their examination at the end of the war, but on second thought she had to admit there was some sense in getting a checkup when going to a new doctor. After all, Legion was a machine - it has literally done the math.

“Hi there!” she waved to Legion when she entered the sick bay, looking around the room. A habit drilled into her head over the years. A chair slid across the room, coming to rest at her side “If you don’t like tuning up cybernetics, you’ll be pleased to know I don’t have too many of those. Just some biotech in my eyes and cybernetics in my ears. The latter gets a bit wonky from time to time, it was an afterthought.” As a child, she imagined force recon units would work as a cohesive, disciplined team, or so she thought until that breaching charge went off without a warning and messed up her ears. Some training accident that was.

“Aside from that, I grew up in a dry and dusty environment if that’s of any concern.” she sat down, remembering all the seemingly unimportant things the previous doctors seemed interested in. “And had an irregular sleep schedule. Anything else you’d like to know?”

Innocence Lost: Space Western Science Fantasy (Temporarily Open Again!)

“Getting in and out of places undetected was my wartime bread and butter.” she turned to Kelan. Not that it always worked, but in hindsight, her failures to remain undetected accounted for nearly half her combat experience, proving once again the adage that every cloud has silver lining. ”Getting into the ship should be easy enough, provided we can get a lay of the land first. It’s getting anywhere once we’re in the ship that worries me. Since it’s a prison ship, I wouldn’t rule out internal security checkpoints, maybe even interior turrets, anything to hinder unintended movement inside, howevermuch of it is left following the crash.” Alternatively, the interior itself could be an obstacle depending on the severity of the crash and the damage that brought the ship down in the first place.

“That armored support could present a problem, though I should be able to create fires hot enough to white out their thermals once our cover is blown.” She scratched her chin thoughtfully. “Unless I can have a brief talk with some of the infantry escorting them. Outside of magic or equipment captured in the field, do we have anything that could be used against armor? At least for a mobility kill?”

TFL: Defiance

Ditto.

Innocence Lost: Space Western Science Fantasy (Temporarily Open Again!)

Blood for the blood god?

TFL: Defiance

Granite

Name: Granite

Race: Rockman

Sex: Male

Age: 47

Backstory: Granite enlisted in the Rock military at a young age and for several years served as a marine on a multitude of Rock transports and warships. His career fell apart shortly after the dawn of the Rebellion as pirate and slaver activity increased due to the chaos caused by the war and the Federation’s string of major defeats. The ship he was stationed on was raided and he and his brothers fought like many times before.

Except this time, they were defeated. Their ship was crippled, disarmed and blinded, leaving them unable to even ram the enemy out of spite and Granite and his comrades were captured by Slug slavers, adding to the irrational Rock xenophobia a very rational hatred of the Slug race.

Granite was bought by a band of human raiders operating a rock light cruiser a few months before the final defeat of the Federation because the Slug slaver made the humans think he was a former engineer. Though the humans soon learned they’d been scammed, Slugs aren’t known for a moneyback guarantee on anything. Though he despised every molecule in the bodies of his new “owners”, cooperation was the best way to ensure survival. Eventually, Granite earned the grudging respect of the raiders both as a valuable addition of their boarding party as well as their sentient fire extinguisher.

The raider cruiser ran out of luck when it came across a lone Federation starship in a part of space mostly unoccupied by the rebels. As far as the pirate ship was concerned, granite was the sole survivor, coming out of the ordeal physically damaged, but alive. Although the Federation captain offered him a place among his crew on an important mission, Granite has had enough of starships for a few years to come and asked to be dropped off on the nearest inhabited world, and the request was granted.

Following the defeat of the Federation at the hands of the Rebel Flagship, Granite blamed himself for refusing to join that ill-fated ship and not being there to help them after they had helped him. When he was offered to take part in the Defiance initiative, he joined without hesitation, determined not to repeat his mistake.

Appearance

Like most Rockmen, granite just about fits the standard doorframe. His rocklike skin shows signs of previous battles and other damage, notably from the destruction of the raider light cruiser.

Skillset: Combat
Role: Security Officer

Innocence Lost: Space Western Science Fantasy (Temporarily Open Again!)

Of course Far Rim heard her. Has she used up all the luck allocated to her for this life during the war or what? “More floors are nice, but only if they’re in use.” Rachel fired back with a generous amount of sarcasm of her own. “And having too many floors in the first place is the reason many kids had half a ground up Kaisoken injected into their bloodstream and got sent to die on the front lines. If that’s the price to pay, then I’m one happy bungalow. No problem from my end regarding your request.”

The hardware the farmers received was impressive. Either Moonstrike had more connections or the Ascendancy was faring much worse than Rachel thought if they managed to get a ground to space cannon planetside intact, though the equipment and the ability to use it properly were two different things and one could only get you so far without the other. Sadly, a small group, even with magic on their side, was hardly in a position to fight a guerilla war. And the longer the Ascendancy was in the dark regarding their strength and makeup, the better.

When the briefing concluded, Legion made a good point. It would be rather unfortunate to get the rogue AI out only to hear ‘Submit, mortal!’ or something similar. “How rebellious? Did it refuse to carry out orders or was it actively hostile? And I take it there is no way to know what state it is in after the crash?”