Its us again! Here to bring you yet another exciting community topic!!!!
This topic is dedicated to any stories, lore, epic poems, novels, Role Playing...anything your heart desires to share!!!
We are always up for a good read and are excited to see what you all create from DS.
We will be featuring hopefully some neat post in this orginal post every so often. Maybe be something we liked or we though it need attention! So, aim your Ogrov at that writers block and get your fingers typing!
There aren't any rules, but we do have some guidelines to follow so that we all can participate and enjoy ourselves.-There is really no limit on what you post just as long as it is Distant Stars related.-Most members are participating in a single large story with the occasional side story or two. While this thread is certainly not limited to just that story, for the benefit of all readers and participants, please begin your post with how we're supposed to handle it. (Personal Story) (DS RP) (Trader Space) Examples of this can be found all throughout the thread or by looking at this post. https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/21/#2596003 This will help us all out by letting us know if you're trying to set yourself up to join the main lore, if you plan on just telling your own story, or if you're just writing lullabies for children to sing before they go to bed.-While we don't expect you to 'Play the game' in your stories, we do ask that you keep any liberties that you take be grounded within the game. For example: Talking about your space marines invading another ship is not something the game covers, so feel free to be inventive on how it would happen. However, carrying point singularity rifles that open up little black holes is beyond the scope of the game and will not be allowed. Soldiers with phasic armor that prevents them from being wounded let alone even being hit, while being relevant to the technology in the game would also not be allowed. The point is to be fair to the other people. We encourage you to ask yourselves, would this work in the game, and how would I feel if someone used this on me? If You feel strongly that it would work and you'd be okay with it being used against you, then by all means, use it. Fantasy posting, dream sequences, and April Fool's postings are of course, immune from this guideline.-We highly encourage you to message other members for help or advice. There is a TeamSpeak channel that is frequently used by the regulars to talk issues out or just shoot the breeze behind the scenes. Everyone is encouraged to take advantage of these resources. Also, 'regulars' may send you messages with suggestions, concerns, or advice. It's nothing personal, so please do not be offended, they're just trying to help keep the lore consistent within these guidelines. If there's any doubt at all about anything, just message one of the people who you see posting a lot. If they don't know, they'll pass your message along to someone who does or tell you who you need to talk to.-It is also highly recommended that you message other RPers before posting anything involving their stuff. If you don't, you're likely going to find all of DS rising up against you.-In an effort to reduce clutter, we're asking that Out Of Character (OOC) commenting be either sent to the individual for whom it is intended by using the private message feature, or take it to another thread. https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/366762 is a thread frequented by many of the lore writers and random comment posting about anything under the sun is highly encouraged there as well in an attempt to get the thread locked. Enjoy.
Here are other stories found within the topic:
-Reply # 103 Coloniel3 has started a interesting story. We look forward to more from him/her soon! JUMP TO STORY
-Reply # 107 Cadalancea has shared some great stories from his/her own writtings!! Again we look forward to more from him/her!! JUMP TO STORY
Some resources that we have spent hours, days, and weeks working on that will help out all participants in this thread. We ask that you look through these to help you better understand the region.-About Distant Stars- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/11/#2532381This post will give you a lot of basic information on what the region of space is like, how to get there, and who is there waiting for you.-Distant Stars Maps- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/23/#2604760This post provides you with a quick look at the region and provides you with a download link where you can get yourself a copy of the posted maps in their unreduced forms. They're very helpful when trying to figure out where to go and who you're likely going to run into when you get there. Maps of individual systems are posted throughout the thread. They're generally posted by the first person to explore the system. If you don't know if a system has been explored or not or want to see a map of a system that has been explored, ask around via PM or TeamSpeak. Someone will point you to the place.-Character Biographies- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/11/#2532380This post is a general collection of the main RP characters whom you will likely have contact with. We ask that all people posting in the main lore post their main character(s) bio as soon as possible so that the rest of us have a little background on who your character is, how they like to fight, where do they come from, and why they're there. Read the existing bios for examples on what we're looking for.
-Player made TEC Fleet Ranking Structure- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/17/#2581279
-UE Fleet Rankings- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/18/#2582667
-David's Lions Fleet Rankings- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/18/#2581491
-Advent Social Structure/Rankings- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/18/#2581615
-Potential Gas Giant Colony Designs- https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372058/page/30/#2617791
ITS SUGGESTED YOU READ ALL THE LORE POST, IF YOU WISH TO JOIN US. THIS ALLOWS YOU TO UNDERSTAND AND CATCH UP ON ALL THE CURRENT HAPPENINGS.
(Personal Story/Planet Galan, Advent Colony)
Part Eight of Teir -
-Teal
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teir-
Conversations –
The grass was wet as the sun went down, it had been a long day.
Her slippers made short lines in the grass and dirt. Mist came off her breathe.
She had gone beyond the garden, out past the other buildings. It made her feel good that the Mother Superior had said her name, it was important, and good.
But there was something in it all that she didn’t understand.
Why had she insisted on names to begin with? Why did it mean so much to her here, that the people were different, people at home were different, and it had never entered her mind to tell them how to live. How to think, why now?
Tree’s grew here, low clusters of buildings away from the others, white stone domes placed in an arc about the main buildings. The prayer tower in the center of all of them, children ran here. For the first time she saw men and women who were Advent, but their eyes were not white. They stood in small clusters in their white clothing at the front of their small domes and watched her. None approached, except the children. A little boy ran up to her with a stick and started telling her, as if he had always known her, “This is my gun… you see? I’m going to grow up and be a pilot, well, maybe not a pilot, girls are pilots, so I’ll be a soldier, you know? I’m going to grow up and die for the Unity.”
She frowned at his words and knelt down to look him in the face. A breeze pushed through the branches of the trees behind her. The sun was warm.
It felt like a normal day.
Like any day.
“Why do you have to be a soldier?” She asked him. “Can’t you be a pilot if you want?”
“Girls are pilots,” he said, his face squinched up a moment as he thought about it, “ I want to be a soldier, you know?” He looked at her with brown eyes. His hair was a frock of brown tangled hair that fell down over his eyes as he talked. He kept holding on to the stick, like it was something important. Teir smiled, but she wanted to frown.
“Why do you have to die?”
“Well… because.” He said matter of factly.
“Because why?” She asked, she moved her hand out and ran it through his hair. He looked like Sumal at home. Sumal was the neighbor boy who was going to go to town and live in the city. That is what Sumal wanted. To get off the farm and live an adventurous life, it was always adventurous in the city. Nothing fun ever happened out on the farms. The memory made her want to smile again. But there was this boy, and he made her not want to smile, so much as to cry.
“Well… because… you know.” He said.
“Because?”
“Because.”
He ran off then, absorbed in something else. Running through the trees and back toward the white domes, but when his mother and father called to him, he ran the other way.
Teir walked up to the house. It was the first time she had been out of the Convent proper since she had arrived on Galan. These people were different. When she came close the man and woman lowered their eyes and the man bowed, the woman curtsied.
Teir tried to smile, but the man and woman would not look up at her.
“Hello…, I’m Teir.” She said. The man and woman nodded, but didn’t say anything. “Is there something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, One. We don’t have many visitors, but you are welcome. Will you take him?”
“Take who?”
“Our son, he is young, but he can learn. He will make a good soldier.”
“Wait!” her voice came out harder than she had intended. But she was more than a little confused and more than a little agitated with all this soldier stuff, first from the boy and now the father. The mother was still silent.
“Do you want this? Do you want him to be a soldier?”
The woman looked in Teir’s direction, but did not lift her eyes.
“You can take him if you want.” She said.
“Take him?” She snorted, she was growing frustrated with these two. “Look at me!” She was deliberately harsh this time, but immediately they looked up, but tried to keep their eyes averted.
“I said look at me!” This time they did.
“What is all this? What is with him wanting to be a soldier and die, and for God’s name, why are you so eager to say yes? “
“You are One.” Said the man, the father, she presumed.
“What is One?”
The woman stammered, but finally got out, “You are a foreigner, but you are of the Unity, you wear the gray.”
“I am NOT of the Unity, at least not yet, and what does that have to do with him being a soldier and why are you so willing to let me take him?”
“All One can take any of us at any time. You are One.”
“And what does that make you?”
The man fell down into the dirt with his face pressed into the ground, the woman fell with him, laying there with their faces pressed into the grass and dirt.
“Answer me!” Teir felt that this world was upside down. She had been angry before in her life, there was enough to cause that for anyone anywhere, but here, it seemed especially taxing. She felt like she was continually angry. Not a good thing. Unless she could change enough that she didn’t have to be angry constantly.
The man spoke into the dirt.
“We are Not One. We are ‘Unseen’.”
“And what are ‘Unseen’?” She almost spat out. She wanted to hit something, but not these poor wretches that bowed and scrapped and wouldn’t look her in the eye to save their life.
“We do not ‘see’ in the mind, we are not of the ‘mind’.” The woman whispered, “We are less than the dirt of the ground to the One.”
Teir snorted, “Not likely, at least around me. Stand up, for God’s sake stand up!” The couple shifted arms and legs and slowly stood.
“Now, what is your names?”
They simply stared at her.
She sighed, none of this was going to be easy, was it? All the Advent she had met, had been wonderful, but they had all been extremely frustrating as well, every one of them.
“All right, I am Teir, you are…?” She waited.
At last the woman looked up and into her eyes.
“I am Sere.”
Teir sighed, “Well, that is a start.” She looked at the man, who glanced at his wife as if she were mad to speak her name, but then reluctantly looked at Teir, actually looked her in the eyes. Progress, Teir thought, slow numbing progress, but it was there. Like yanking teeth, Teir felt she was going to get used to getting angry all the time. It seemed to be the normal way of life for her here. Finally the man got the words out.
“I am San.”
“Well… well, there, we finally have it, now that wasn’t too terribly hard now was it?” They simply stared at her. It wasn’t that she expected an answer to that one. But it would be nice to have a conversation without feeling like it was pulling their teeth out.
“Ok, so we got that far, now, what is this soldier thing, what is this ‘take him’ thing, and what is this ‘not one’ thing. She was growing tired standing and standing and standing. Interrogations were hard on the legs. She sat down in the dirt.
“Sit.” She said. And they did. Just like dog’s, she thought. Well… she didn’t want that, but it was expedient sometimes. Like when you ran out of patience and didn’t want them to argue with you about it.
“Start with the ‘not one’ thing first.”
The woman spoke slowly and the man simply sat and listened. The ‘not one’, were the low caste Advent, no psychic powers, they lived in communes on the outside of ‘one’ communities, those that did have powers. They lived like slaves, and in many ways, that is exactly what they were. The whole thing with the ‘soldier’ thing, was that they were raised like cattle, and their offspring were used as drones in the low caste Advent ships that went into battle largely as fodder. Grist for the battles in low hulled ships that were largely used as suicide fleets against the Tech. The Advent had been in the business of raising low cost bio weapons for centuries.
Teir wanted to throw up and scream and hit somebody all at the same time.
The boy wanted to grow up and die as a ‘soldier’ because that is what was expected of him. What he had been ‘TOLD!’ all his young life. And he ACCEPTED IT! She wanted to scream! But she didn’t. She simply tore out handfuls of grass in front of her as the woman explained and got madder and madder.
She was going to ‘Enlighten’ the Mother Superior again.
And if it went as well as the ‘names’ issue, she was going to have to find out what else she didn’t know that the Advent took for granted and normal and she was going to have to correct that as well.
When the woman finished speaking Teir stood up, she looked them in the eye as they scrambled up to their feet as well, so they would not be sitting in her presence. Teir sighed, she felt she was going to sigh eternally it seemed, God help her.
“Firstly, when you see me, you will say hi, and you will use your names. You will look me in the eye when you speak to me and when I speak to you, and you will sit and stand when you please and not when you think you have to. Is that understood!”
“Yes One.” They both said at the same time.
“Oh my! We will have to work on that, ok? I am Teir, not One, got it?” She sighed again. She was really getting to hate that.
“Ok, Sere, San, and what is the boy’s name?”
“San.” Said the woman.
“Why didn’t I think of that? There must be something with the S’s as well now, isn’t there?”
“All Not One, have names that are not like the One. All are the same.”
“Of course! “ She really did want to hit somebody now. They were like dog’s. They did not even have names that were names. Just ‘Sere’ for the females and San for the males. Teir shook her head slowly.
Then just as suddenly, instead of wanting to hit something, Teir suddenly wanted to cry. It was horrible, and unacceptable. And could she even think of becoming part of the Unity, if this is what it was?
Except for some reason she couldn’t fathom, they listened to her. Maybe it was because she was angry all the time? She suddenly wanted to laugh. Her father would understand that. But it wasn’t funny, it was sad, it was heartbreaking.
“We will work on that…” she said to the woman.
“And no more of this ‘taking’ thing either, if anyone comes to ‘take’ anyone, you don’t let them, you understand?”
They both stared at her as if she was crazy.
“No one ‘takes’ anyone anymore. I will see to that!”
She left them then, and walked back toward the larger common domes of the Convent, stalked back really, driving her heels into the dirt with each step.
When she looked back the boy was standing next to his mother and father. Watching her go.
He wanted to be a soldier.
Well, not if she had anything to say about it.
She didn’t understand why they listened to her at all, at first she assumed it was because she was reasonable. But the names of the Mother Superior and The Elder Sister were not reasonable. It was as far from reasonable as you could get.
But they still had listened.
Why?
And did it matter as long as things got changed?
It did.
If she wasn’t careful she would turn out to be a tyrant. It wasn’t something that she had ever thought of before. But as long as people were people, and had names, not just the ‘Ones’ with power. But everyone, and they weren’t treated like cattle or dog’s and had real names, then she would be happy. That would be tyrant enough for her.
And if she could pull this off?
Well…
Then she would have to ask some angel next time she saw one, how that particular miracle had happened.
Maybe it meant something she hadn’t thought of before now, when it all seemed just to be happenstance, maybe it was supposed to happen that way. Maybe the Vasari and leaving T’Lan and coming here had all been meant to happen.
Is that what was called fate?
Did she even believe in fate?
She was beginning to.
***
(No longer necessary view edit for original post)
(NO LONGER NEEDED, SEE EDIT FOR OP)
(Personal / DS) Lieutenant Batson's envoy appears at the edge of the Finley Star's gravity well broadcasting their ship ID. The starbases immediately recognize the codes and contact the ship on a known common channel. "David's Lions Envoy, welcome to Finley." goes the message over the comm channel. "Admiral Draakjacht sent us here with an engineering project we'd like to get some help with developing." the envoy's comm officer says back. "Would you like to speak with our fleet engineer, Todd Degroff?" "Yes. That would be great." the comm officer on the envoy replies. "Roger that, stand by." As the starbase locates Todd to patch him into the conversation, the captain of the envoy calls Lieutenant Batson to the command deck to answer any questions on the project that may be asked. Batson arrives just before Todd gets on the channel. "This is Todd, I hear you've got a project for me." he says. Batson gets on the comm, "Yeah... Uh... Yes, Admiral Draakjacht has a special project he's interested in contracting your help with, but because of our situation out here, he doesn't foresee any progress on our part beyond the concept stages." "So what's the project?" Todd asks. "According to the schematics it's an auto target acceleration adjustment control system adapted from the targeting upgrades on the Argonevs and that gets installed on individual turrets. The goal is to improve target acquisition time and their chances of hitting their target as it moves around." Batson replies. "ATAACS. Nice name. I like it already. Turrets... Turrets..." Todd wanders off in his thoughts and shuffles through some papers in front of him. "Mr. Degroff...?" Batson says after a few moments of silence. "Oh.. Sorry, I have a lot of projects in front of me right now and I'm trying to remember which station is doing my gauss platform research." he answers. "These aren't for the gauss turrets," Batson corrects. "Excuse me?" Todd replies. "Yes," Batson continues, "The targeting system increases locking time, but gauss turrets are too slow with their slow rate of fire and maneuvering thrusters. This is for the shipboard cannons, both auto turrets and lasers. In fact, we've got preliminary ideas for fast-tracking gear systems to make full use it." "Wow," Todd replies. "That is a pretty good idea. Okay, that means I have to look for a different batch of things." "We can come back later if you don't have the time." "That's not it..." Todd says ignoring, or just not hearing what was just said while looking at another sheet of paper. "AH! Here... Why is Finley 3 off limits? Screw it... I don't have time for that. Meet me at the Finley 1 Moon. I have some platforms already set up for upgrade tests, and we can build your little device there and run some tests once we have a prototype built." "Okay so where..." Batson manages to get out before Todd cuts his comm link. "Do... we... go from here to get there..." "Updating your nav charts with our system info, follow the programmed route." a voice says over the comm as the screens near the pilots light up with new information displaying all of the names of the starbases, planets, and phase lanes except for the two leading to Finley 3, and a route appears for them to follow. One of the pilots comments, "Wow, these guys don't screw around when it comes to getting people where they need to go. Flashy charts and everything." The other pilot comments as well, "Makes you wish it was like this in every system." The ship captain leans forward in his chair to look at the information, "They're merchants, customer service is their business so they should be doing stuff like this. Do you two remember what your business is, ensigns?" "Yes, captain, maneuvering to the phase lane jump point now." the first pilot says as he throttles up the ship and maneuvers it around. "Beginning phase drive charging, sir, jump coordinates were pre-programmed in. Ready when you are." the second pilot immediately follows with. The captain sits back in his chair with a proud smirk on his face. "Proceed." The Envoy pulls between the two starbases, stops at the edge of the gravity well, and makes its first jump. Lieutenant Batson, not used to being able to see out the windows, practically jumps out of his seat when he's surprised at how close the envoy exits phase space to the giant metal hull of another starbase. The crew on the command deck do their best to hide their amusement but some of it manages to slip out. The pilots push the envoy to full power and hurry to the next jump. Still following the route, they zoom past all of the orbital structures and the damaged capital ships sitting at the repair bay and pull up to the coordinates displayed and their nav computer auto updates with the second pre-programmed jump coordinates. "Don't wet yourself if there's another starbase on the other side." the captain says right before the ship jumps again. At the moon, their nav charts auto update once again with a zoomed in view to show them that they need to dock with the military research station. They follow as instructed and once they're successfully connected, Todd opens their hatch from inside the station and boards their ship. He walks up to the command deck, punches in a code on the keypad and opens the door. "Hey fellas." he says as he walks in. The captain turns around, his hand moved over his holstered sidearm, and says, "How the hell did you get in here without setting off any of the alarms?!?" Todd laughs, "I helped to design this bad boy before I got hired by Roesh. Earlier version, but functional none the less. If you don't change anything from the base systems, all of the engineering codes from us team members will function as master overrides." He takes a seat at one of the stations and starts digging into the computer system. "So where's my little project?" Batson holds out the datapad. "Right here." "Okay. Hang onto it." Todd says right before the lights dim and return to normal levels. "Huh... Funny, some things did get changed." "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mess with my ship." the captain states as he moves to Todd's side and looks over his shoulder. "Don't worry your pretty little head, I'm making it better." Todd says before typing in a few more commands that cause all of the screens on the command deck to display slowly advancing progress bars. "When it's done your systems will restart. Better programming is being installed to allow for more precise controlling and monitoring of all systems, and automated functions have been added to a lot of mundane functions like having to manually trigger the nav computers to plot a jump course, life support shutting off manually in hull breached areas that are sealed so you don't waste power, new autopilot feature for pre-programmed way points... When I was on the DLS David installing holoprojectors and recoding the systems to be able to use them properly, I was amazed at how old and outdated everything was. It's just adorable how they watched over me to make sure I wasn't digging around in things I wasn't supposed to be looking at... I know things about that ship, they don't even know about. Maybe you weren't told, but I said I'd upgrade ships if they were brought in. It's kind of funny and sad that you'll have the best ship in the fleet... Internal systems wise anyway." "Impressive..." Batson says. "I heard you were good, but this... Why do you guys have a starbase so close to the jump point exit?" "That? It scares the shit out of people who've never seen it before." Todd replies causing the command deck crew to laugh. "It also lets us get the first shots off if an invader penetrates into the system. Literally, they have no where to go but straight to hell... Anyway, let's go... Batson, right?" "Yes." he replies. "And bring your little datapad too..." Todd says in a higher pitched squeaky voice as he walks out the door. "The rest of you can do... Whatever... I don't care. If you make a mess, clean it up." he yells walking down the hall. The lights flicker again as Todd reaches the hatch causing him to yell once more, "Upgrade's done!" Batson looks at the captain shaking his head, "Someone needs to lay off the caffeine." The captain responds, "Shouldn't you be following him?" before turning to an ensign nearby, "Log all changes made to the system, ensign." Batson sprints off the command deck and down the hall to the hatch to catch up to Todd who is already walking down another hall in the research lab. He stops at a door and waits for Batson to catch up. "There's other things I need to talk to someone about." Batson says. "Is it ATAACS related?" Todd asks. "Yes and no. Yes because of compensation for the work... No because it's about the..." Batson says before he's cut off. "I don't care. ATAACS only when you pass through these doors." Todd says as he walks in. Batson follows him in. "It's just a few things on here..." he says before he's cut off again. "Plug the datapad in to this." Todd says holding up a small cord. "All the information on it will be uploaded to our systems, station personnel will make sure it get's to where it needs to go. Whom ever needs to talk to whom ever about paying for what will happen later... Let's start building me some new toys." Batson plugs the datapad in and the schematics are brought up on a very large wall monitor. A couple other engineers that were already in the room look at the screen and start picking out parts to work on. Todd pulls up a stool to his new workstation and begins the long process of creating custom computer boards that will be the brains of the system. Batson pulls up a stool and starts working on other parts of the project. "You guys are all business here aren't you?" he asks. "Yeah, I've got a lot on my plate right now and we're tired of getting our asses kicked so the more I get done now, the better off the entire company will be." Todd replies. "Yeah, saw some of your ships in orbit all beat up." "Haven't had the time to give them my proper attention so for right now, only critical repairs are being made." "Sorry to bring you more work then." Batson says apologetically. "Don't worry about it. It's not like you said you come in peace or anything... I'd have had to punch you in the face." Todd says with a grin as he begins to design some circuits on the little screen in front of him. Batson laughs and starts to work on his part of the project.
Part Nine of Teir -
Something in the Tea –
It was still dark, when she rose and dressed, putting the soiled dress and blouse away in a small basket that she would need to take to the downstairs laundry and clean later. She dressed in a clean gray skirt, the hem of it dropping all the way to her ankles. She cleaned her slippers of grass and dirt and put on a clean gray blouse and combed her dark hair back, tying it with a simple white ribbon and washed her face. Peering into the dim and worn old single mirror on the wall above the washbasin, her eyes were red rimmed and she was still tired. She had been awake half the night after she had spoken to the Mother Superior about the “Unseen”.
The woman had sat in her tall backed chair, unadorned except for the ridges of lines carved into the dark wood, with her hands in her lap and listened. Her face had been calm, though at several points as Teir had related the story of the boy and his parents, her eyebrows had raised. Though the woman had not said anything, other than at the end when Teir had finished, the woman had nodded.
“I will bring it before the Council.” She had said in a calm voice. She had looked down at her hands in her lap and nodded again, to herself and then tried to smile. It had been a difficult smile. Teir wondered why they listened at all, but that was beyond her. The fact that she needed to say these things, needed for them to understand that this was not the way to treat people, regardless of the Advent history, was something she took for granted.
“I will be speaking with the Council in the morning, I can tell you what they decide.” The Mother Superior had said, and Teir had nodded. But inside she wondered if she should ask to speak to the Council herself. But could that even be done? An outsider and a simple young inexperienced girl as well telling the Council what they should do? She was twenty now. Still too young on her home world to even marry, so she assumed she would not be regarded easily here by those that ran the Advent Council on Galan.
But yet, so many had already listened to her.
The Novices, the Acolytes who had disregarded her, or turned the other way when she walked down the halls, now came up to her and talked with her. They had called her by her name, and told her their names. And their eyes had been, just that beginning shade of white, not yet completed.
But they had spoken with her.
Even Sisters listened and would nod occasionally, as if she had something that had some merit in it, and The Mother Superior and the Elder Sister were like cautious older sisters listening to a peer, instead of to a too young girl.
She tried to put out the doubts in her mind. To simply dress and get ready for the day, small rays of sunlight came in under the cracks of the door from the balconies on the hallway outside her room. Her mother stirred when she gently roused her. She dressed her mother and washed her face, kissed her eyes and smoothed her cheek with her hand, smoothed back her mother’s hair and kissed her forehead.
There was a small knock on the door and Teir crossed and opened it, the dark paneled door falling back to reveal Gelle standing in the thin doorway with a tray in her hands.
“Good morning Teir, good morning m’aam, she nodded around Teir at her mother sitting on the bed. Eggs and toast this morning,” Gelle smiled, “And jam for the toast.” Her voice rose in a little excitement and she moved around Teir.
“We can go to the garden later too.” She beamed at Teir and moved across to the small washbasin where she deposited the tray and then sat in the single chair in the room.
Teir smiled as broadly as she could, Gelle had been a blessing! She leaned over and smoothed her cheek against the other girl’s and whispered quickly, “You are wonderful! I have to run, but thank you thank you very very much for helping me with her.” Gelle closed her eyes a moment as a nod and smiled back. On the bed the mother sat, with dull eyes and an expressionless face. She seemed to be looking at nothing, or else inward, toward something in the past she could not let go of. She had spent her life raising Teir and taking care of her father, and now lost without him, Teir was taking care of her. Teir felt like the mother, but there was nothing for it. She looked in her mother’s eyes and wondered what she would do, if she had had a daughter and husband, and loved him with everything she was and then lost him? Would she be sitting on that bed, eyes blank and empty and motionless?
Teir turned away to frown, so her mother wouldn’t see, and crossed to the door quickly, She didn’t want to speak for fear her voice would crack, that she would break down and cry, and so she simply bowed her head when she reached the thin door and quickly went through it and closed it behind her.
In the hallway Novices were on their way to breakfast and then to classes, or to chores. Dim light came in from the balconies and Teir moved to one of them and stood there a moment trying to compose herself, below her the garden was a dim shadowed glimpse of dark pond and smooth shadowed grass. The great old gnarled and bent tree that rose in its center still dark branches and leaves not yet exposed. The wall hid the light from it, but soon it would breach the wall and the garden would slowly show all its colors.
Mother…mother…
Slowly she turned away from the garden and the balcony and went down the hall to the ramp that led to the lower floor and the dining room and the kitchens. Novices and even some Acolytes that passed her smiled and said “Good morning!” with smiles on their faces, “Good morning Teir!”, she tried to smile back, but it was a weak smile and she nodded to each in turn as they passed her. She wanted to change the world, but her heart was breaking when she thought of her mother. What could she do, except love her and take care of her?
She moved down the ramp and was grateful it was empty, no one else on the lowering incline. For a few moments she was alone in the dim light with her own thoughts. What shall I do? Her slippered feet moved over the black and white tiles of the floor.
Black and white.
Choices.
*
She ate her bran oats listlessly, moving the spoon back and forth through the thick of it. Back and forth, back and forth, sipping at the sweet yeet milk this morning, that seemed sweet, but somehow not like home.
Her father had been raising the broken fence posts where the cattle had gone through, they had found perhaps two thirds of them a stone’s throw from the broken fence, standing in the shade of the overhang of the trees. Chewing contentedly on the long grass, the other third were gone. They had looked over the hill, and the next rise, as far as her father and her could move in the thick grass without sinking too far above their ankles. Finally he had stopped and stood with a hand over his eyes trying to peer out into the distance as if the wandering yeet might be revealed, then they had trudged back up to the fence in silence and he had started to repair the fence.
After a while he spoke, as if to himself, or to the wind.
“You do all you can,” he hadn’t looked at her when he said it, just kept his eyes on the fence post, straightening it, pushing it back down into the hole it had been bent from, grasped his hammer at his belt loop and started to pound at the top of the post, driving it back in.
“But that is all you can do.” He finished with one post and started on another, looping the fence wire that had been bent down to the ground back around the posts as he moved.
“You can’t take account for storm’s you don’t know about, or even one’s you do, that are stronger than you think. You can’t take account for how a yeet is going to feel, all tight and scared and the rain whipping, or which ones are going to sit and weather it, and which ones are going to bolt.” He shoved the post back down into the hole and kicked the dirt around it back down into the hole. Then took his hammer and pounded at the top to push it back down, then looped the wire on the ground back around in two quick loops.
“You do what you can, and that is all you can do.” He finished the post and went on to the next. He raised a hand to his eyes as he peered back out over the hills to see, as if the yeet might suddenly reappear, but they didn’t.
“Then you go on.” He had looked at her then, for the first time as he raised the next post, an even dozen lay on the ground with the wire strewn across the grass. Pushed it into the hole in the dirt and kicked at the base to push the dirt back into the hole, took the hammer and started to pound at the top. Once it was seated he bent and took the strands of wire coiled on the ground and looped them about the post again.
“That’s all anyone that draws breath can do.” He tried to smile, but it was a weak smile, the loss of one third of the herd was going to hurt. It meant tighter times to come, with less on the table than this last year. It meant perhaps no new dresses, or new tools, no new foalings and less money and less feed that he could buy. It meant blowing out the candles earlier in the night to save what they could for the next day and hoping that rains would be good and the crop would not have as many pests. That the harvest would bring enough to catch up a bit, but a third was a lot to lose. And so that meant not just one hard year, but several. And that was if it was good.
And if not?
Well,
There had been those kinds of years before.
He would stay on as long as he could, before he might have to talk to Selene about trying to get a job in town, or even farther afield if there was nothing there.
He paused in swinging the hammer, bending down to grasp the strewn wire on the ground and loop it about the post again.
“After that you go on,” He moved to the next post and bent over to pick it up off the ground, hold it in his hands and push it down into the hole in the ground.
“And hope.” He said.
She sat and slowly picked at her oats and sipped at the sweet yeet milk and tried not to think. One of the Novices came over and put her hand on Teir’s shoulder. It was Herriette, the dark haired girl smiled and patted her shoulder but didn’t say anything. Teir was grateful for that, she wasn’t sure she could speak right then.
“We support you.” The girl said, and then patted Teir’s shoulder again and walked back to her table. The girls all watched Teir for a moment and then quietly turned back to their breakfast’s.
And then there was the Unity.
Things seldom happened one at a time.
The year they had lost a third of the herd, the barn had caught fire. The rain’s had come late. Father had rebuilt the barn, but couldn’t replace all the equipment. The harvest was poor that year. They had lived on credit for almost five years after that.
Would she join the Unity?
And if she did would she still feel the same as she did now?
She stared down at the floor tiles under the table where she sat.
She went to the Sisters, each small group she saw in the hallway and those who were walking alone when she saw them. She bowed her head and tried to explain without arguing what she thought of the boy and his parents and that it wasn’t right.
Some listened.
Others moved away from her when she brought it up and stared at her with cold white eyes as if she was blaspheming. She didn’t argue, she simply moved on to the next group, the next sister, the next novice or acolyte and repeated what she believed.
The novices were perhaps the easiest to understand her. In many ways they were still just girls, fresh from home and new to the ways of the Advent. Even some acolytes agreed as well, but not all. And Teir wondered if her voice were failing her, or if simply that her anger had fueled something in her, or them, that was not the same when she simply spoke with her voice low, with her mind swirling with thoughts of her mother and with home and with her future.
At noon she was called by the Mother Superior and she walked to the office as quickly as she could, though she felt exhausted by all the meetings where she had tried to convince the others of her point of view.
The office was cool and the Mother sat in her chair, with the dark engraved lines of it, with her hands on the desk in front of her and looked at Teir as if she was some young and unknown thing that she has just discovered.
“The Council is split. There are some who agree with your points,” The Mother sighed, and pulled her hands into her lap, “But there are others who expressly oppose what you propose.” She turned her blank eyes to the window and the blue sky beyond. The garden fell below and the pond of it, the great tree with its great branches stood unmoving.
“Some have formally left the Unity, breaking ties with the Convent and establishing their own sects. Many of them have formed a coalition of their own. About a third of them, you must realize that it is not easy for any of them to accept change, and certainly not from a young outsider such as yourself.”
“Then why did you agree with me Dellana?”
The Mother Superior’s face eased and she smiled for a moment.
“Because what you said made sense, to me, inside of me I had the same thoughts. And because I was once a farm girl, here, long before the city ever became the world city it is now. It is easy for me to understand. But it is not so easy with all of the others.”
She stood then and came around her desk and as Teir hung her head, the Mother Superior smoothed the girl child’s hair.
“We cannot change all the world.” She said, “though it is a noble thought.”
Teir nodded her head and sat, tears started to pool in the corners of her eyes and she wiped at them with the sleeve of her blouse.
“I …. I … ssshould … have known this was what would…” She said, and reached up to pat the Mother Superior’s arm.
The Mother smiled then, a soft and comforting smile that spread like warm light out of her. “It is not a terrible thing to say what you believe, nor a grievous one to stand up for those things.”
She pointed to a painting on a tapestry behind her desk, and Teir wiped at her eyes and looked at it. It was a scene of a woman covered in light to the point where only the outline of her showed through, ascending a set of stairs that numbered in the thousands. To the top of a building where trees sprouted their highest branches and the sun shown over the edge of it. Crowds of painted figures and faces lay below the figure as she ascended.
“Our first Empress, was the One that led us into what we are now. She was strong willed and arrogant, but she was also compassionate and listened to those who came to her, and she listened to all of her people.” She turned back to Teir and wiped a tear away with the edge of her sleeve. “Not everyone agreed with her, or thought she was right in everything she proposed and did. But as Empress, she made us more than we were without her. She healed those who suffered, and made the weak strong. She gave conviction and purpose to those who had no direction. And she loved us.”
The Mother Superior sighed.
“We are after all, every one of us, only flesh and blood. We are flawed. But it is those flaws that help us have compassion when we are angry. Or give us strength when we are weak.”
She looked at Teir and smoothed the girl’s cheek with the palm of her hand. “You could be a part of us, and perhaps find that strength, or that resolve to change. It would be easier inside than it is outside.”
The Mother smiled again, “I do not agree with war, and so I stayed here, and built a place of the things I do believe in.” She smoothed the girl’s cheek. “We each find our ways.” She said softly.
Teir looked up in the woman’s eyes and tried to think.
What was she to do?
What was she …?
The garden was quiet, peaceful. There was a slow stir of air across the branches that moved them in slow bends. The leaves, brown or gray, or green rustled and moved as if speaking, as if moving from place to place or going home from long walks somewhere where only leaves could go. The sun sat heavy in the middle of the sky and burnished it with a soft white gleam.
A white star.
Appropriate, Teir thought.
The Mother sat on a stone bench at the edge of the pond and spoke slowly, her voice low. “You are already strong. I don’t know how. You are not Advent, it is not in your blood, I can tell that much, but yet, you still are strong. You are stronger than I and I am ten times your age.” She gave a small laugh for a moment, then composed her skirt in her hands and brushed at the edges, as if embarrassed to laugh at all. But then she firmed her chin and raised her eyes to the girl standing at the edge of the pond overlooking the great tree.
“I should laugh more often, it is good for the soul.” She smiled. “Thank you .”
Teir turned from watching the great tree, the bark of it, the dark weathered trunk and limbs that rose up out of the small pond that surrounded it toward the sky. Silent and large, with its branches moving slowly in the breeze, the leaves of its branches trembling and glittering in the light.
“For what?” She asked.
“For reminding me that we after all, are human, for the gift of having a name, and for the simple joy of a laugh, that isn’t the end of the world, so much as a joining in the joy of it.”
Teir smiled.
“You give me too much credit, all I did was get angry and tell everyone it was ok to be themselves.”
“Haha, exactly!” The Mother replied.
“I have something that will help,” The Mother said then, “Something that may help you to concentrate what you already have.”
Tier turned toward the Mother and shook her head a moment.
“I don’t need powers.” She said.
The Mother regarded her.
“You don’t understand. You already have powers. How else do you think you could have accomplished what you already have accomplished? I am not trying to change you Teir, only help clarify if I can.”
Teir tried to smile then.
She turned back and looked at the great tree, the bulk of it spreading itself above the wall of the garden and into the high sunlight.
Choices, she thought.
Though there were no tile stones among the grass and dirt and water and bark of the garden that she could see.
No tiles.
But still choices.
She sat in the dining room, it was night, and quiet. Gelle had walked her mother for an hour in the garden, and the Mother Superior had patted Teir’s arm and told her it was going to be all right. Somehow Teir believed.
She didn’t know why, when there were so many things that could change, that were still undecided, that still had yet to finish themselves.
But somehow she did believe.
There was a calmness in her for that.
For that small thing, as a point of view, as a small feeling that moved in you and made all the difference between fear and hope.
She sipped at the wooden cup of tea before her and smiled. It surprised her that it was sweet. There was something in the tea, she didn't know if it would make a difference.
But she hoped.
Yo Stant, in this post#283 and your new map. Did you rename the gateway wormhole and is now part of the UPS faction...
Old Map
(Personal / DS) J'rah's Envoy jumps into the Finley system. "Welcome Lord J'rah. Is there anything we can help you with?" the comms officer on starbase Orlov asks. "Yessss. Lord J'rah requesssssstssss and audienccccccccce with Lord Roesh." the ships pilot replies. "Very well, stand-by while we locate him." ... ... The starbase finally chimes in again. "Starbase Orlov to Lord J'rah, we're updating your nav computer, follow the route to Finley 1. Roesh and Henry are on their way. Attendants will see to your needs while you wait." "Thank you ssssstarbasssse Orlov." the pilot says before following the course given to him. They quickly maneuver themselves between the two starbases and jump to Finley one. On the other side they once again find themselves staring right at starbase Sorsk. The crew talk amongst themselves at how much fun it would be to have to fight their way past three starbases before conquering a planet, before J'rah enters the command deck and quells their excitement. Their ship moves into high orbit and then proceeds down to the planet once again after receiving the go ahead from their landing site planet side. After touchdown, they begin to exit the envoy and are greeted by Molly Pierce and several other people. "Lord J'rah, I'm Molly Pierce, pleasure to meet you." she says as she extends her hand. J'rah shakes it in a somewhat mechanical fashion still not fully accustomed to the human gesture. "It is nice to be back." "You speak our language very well." she says with a look on her face that shows clearly that she's impressed. "I spend a lot of time around humans... Some of which don't like me very much even though I personally have not done anything to them. It is my way of disarming their hatred by speaking to them as another human would." "Hatred runs deep in humanity. Fortunately though, we all have our own opinions... So what one person feels, isn't necessarily the same thing the next person feels." "We Vasari also have different opinions." "Shall we head to the town hall while we wait for Roesh and Henry?" "Yes. What about my crew?" "They can stay here, they can come with us, or they can go with my assistants here and visit different parts of the town." J'rah turns around and says a few things to his crew in his native language and several begin to nod. He turns back to Molly and says, "I gave them permission to leave the ship, if that's okay with you." "Perfect." she says. "Any souvenirs, food, or refreshments they would like, just let my staff know and they'll take care of it." J'rah nods to her before turning back to them and giving a few more orders. Once he's finished, he and Molly head for the town hall, and his crew leaves the ship and disperses into groups headed to different parts of the town. Molly and J'rah spent 10 minutes talking about her plans for various Vasari amenities scattered about her city of the future vision before Henry and Roesh finally arrive with Casey. Molly stands up and excuses herself when the three enter the room. "Lord J'rah, how's life treating you?" Henry asks. "I've had some difficulties, but I believe some steps to a resolution has been made." he answers. Casey narrows her eyes while she takes a seat at the table while J'rah is answering Henry. Roesh puts his hand on her shoulder causing her to look up and see him slightly shaking his no. He then takes a seat next to her. Henry and J'rah take seats opposite them. J'rah continues, "You must be Lord Roesh." Casey fights off a laugh while saying, "Oh, please..." Roesh chuckles a bit, "It's just Roesh. No lord title for me. I'm just a working man." "Humans use a lot of different titles and many prefer none at all." J'rah muses. "Yes well, don't let them confuse you, most of them are worthless fluff anyway." Henry states. "I shall not. It is good to finally meet you Roesh." J'rah continues. "Good to meet you too, considering the little gift you gave us." Roesh says. "Yes, the nanites. I am curious to know how they are working out for you." J'rah asks. "So far we've only done a few small samples, but the results look promising." Casey says as she pushes a small packet of papers across the table. "This is our mining and salvage division head, Casey." Henry informs J'rah. "It is a pleasure to meet you." J'rah says. Casey forces a smile but otherwise makes no attempt to be pleasant. Henry points to some notes on the paperwork, "The results are less then expected, however, keep in mind that these were just small test samples. We're really going to need a couple weeks worth of data to make any reasonable estimations on the gains in production. But from the looks of it, it's not going to be the 20% to 30% that was anticipated. Probably closer to half of that." J'rah looks over the numbers real quick. "I had hoped for better." "So did I." Henry states. "I have studied basic TEC mining technology and by my estimations even on low volume tests like these, the gains should have been better." J'rah laments. Casey laughs again. "When you're good, you're good." Roesh adds, "Well, you're probably going to see mixed results in our operations since we already combine mining technologies." "You already have Vasari tech?" J'rah asks. "No. We have our very own Advent mining specialist." Henry replies. J'rah looks up to see Casey reclining in her chair with a huge grin on her face. "I understand. That explains the trade ship I saw in the gravity well before we headed down here." "No... That actually is a trade contract we have with the Garran Collective, an Advent colony near here who showed up around the time we did. Casey has nothing to do with that." Henry states. "So your mining leader is an Advent, and I have given you Vasari tools. I must admit, I am envious. I wish nothing more then to see all three working together." J'rah states. "We can do that right now." Henry says. "Yes... Please And if you could, I would like to meet with members of this Garran Collective." J'rah replies eagerly. "Right, come with me, I'll have a message sent to Thenos on our way to the rig. We should get an answer by the time we get back." The four exit the town hall and head back to the landing pad and board a transport that takes them up to one of the mining facilities on the resource asteroids in orbit. During the trip, J'rah asks Henry for the reason behind Casey's behavior toward him since everyone else seems accepting of his presence. Henry in return informs him that she's just like that with people she's never seen before and prefers solitude over crowds, and tells him that she's typically more then willing to show off her skills when bragging rights are involved. At the asteroid mining rig, J'rah is shown how Casey uses her innate powers to map out the veins and adjust the rig's drilling angles to stay on them. Henry then shows him the material that's brought up and adds in the nanites to the rig's drill holes. When more material is brought up, J'rah is shown the new cleaner materials. Henry explains what they've learned about the combined technologies over the years. "What we're looking at is the Advent part of the process helps to target the veins reducing miss drills and reduces the need to drill test holes. They use their psychic abilities to locate the minerals and stay on them. They can also use their abilities to break down the mined materials making it easier to work with and refine, however, since we only have Casey, we can't take advantage of that part. Ultimately though, she speeds up our ability to get at the materials we want, and avoid the stuff we don't want by mapping out what she sees into the computers and our rig operators just follow her guides. Now we add in the nanites you gave us, and from our limited testing, we're seeing the nanites in the drill holes removing a lot of the overburden we still have to deal with, and more nanites at the refineries removing much more during the final sorting. Ultimately, this is leading to a higher purity going into the refinery, reducing the time required to turn it into usable products as you probably already know since it's your technology... The TEC aspect is the improved rigs and refineries. Don't get me wrong, the Vasari and Advent have nice stuff, but we don't have the same advantages so we make better tools to make up for it. We can go into the veins much deeper then you saving us time from having to relocate, we have rigs that run themselves so only minimal staffing is required allowing us to operate more efficiently, and we have better refineries that let us get to equally as high purity levels quicker. By combining the three, we're seeing unprecedented levels of output... Which should only get better once time has been given to further develop the technologies and adapt them to cooperate better." "I am eager to learn much more about this cooperative work." J'rah states. "As am I." Henry adds. "Yeah... We should continue this in a less noisy environment though." Roesh says after several pieces of machinery start up at the same time. "Awwwwwwe... Do my big noisy machines scare you?" Casey sarcastically asks Roesh. Roesh laughs, "Let's see how much you like it when I pull funding from your division and give it to Tim." "Hey! Without me, you'll lose contracts." she fires back with. "Keep it up and I won't buy you lunch either." he replies. She salutes him and quickly walks off back to the transport shuttle. "Very nice. You buy her allegiance with food." Henry says. "If it works, why change it. And as long as Todd doesn't get under her skin like he usually does, then she doesn't run off needing to punch anyone." Henry laughs and the other three eventually follow her. Once back on the ship, Henry sees that a message is waiting for him that is granting approval for the meeting and to have J'rah contact them about the details. They enjoy a smooth quiet ride back to the planet's surface where J'rah reunites with some of his crew. Still eager to learn more about the cooperative efforts between the technologies he decides to join them for a meal so they could talk about other areas where cooperation could drastically improve the quality of life. During the meal, dozens of onlookers notice the foursome gathered and take pictures having never seen all three factions sitting at the same table at the same time. When the meal is finished, and the conversation concluded, J'rah returns to his ship and recalls his crews that haven't returned yet. As they return to their duty stations, they show off to each other the things they've picked up to take back with them. Once they're all aboard, the envoy lifts off the ground and heads back into orbit, to the star, and then jumps away. "What's Todd been up to the past couple days? He's been awfully quiet." Henry asks. Roesh shrugs. "Don't know... I'll go check."
Personal Story-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- T'Lan aka T'imo 1-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Clan Lorrrd wee havee arrrived at T'imo 1. Yourrrr orderrrrssss?” Said Captain V'aun. “Weeee Ssshale Rrrrule again. Kiilll them alll. The Advent mussst Die. For the Glory of the Empire.” Said Clan Lord K'tanu. “ For the Glorry of the Empire.” Chanted the Crew of the J'anku. (Kortul Devastator) The Vasari fleet moves to take out the City's of the planet and a few civilian ship's they fall easily to the Vasari fleet of two Capital ships( 1 Kortul, 1 Jarrasul. ) and 60 support ships ( 5 Sivuskras Ruiner, 5 Serevun Overseer, 5 Karrastra Destructor, 15 Ravastra Skirmisher, 30 Kanrak Assailant. ) “Wee havee wiped out the Advent of T'imo 1 Clan Lorrrd.” said V'aun. “Verrrry good have the Kansun ( Jarrasul) take over the planet then move the fleet to T'imo 2.” Said K'tanu. “As you command Clan Lorrd. For the Glorry of the Empire.” Said V'aun. After launching colony bots to T'imo 1 to start building city's. The fleet moves on to T'imo 2. (Teir) Once there they see nothing anther defenseless world. “Dessstroy the Advent.” Ordered K'tanu. The Vasari ships move to low orbit. They then start slicing in to the planet with there planetary assault beam's. “Leave the Kansun to take care of the planet move the rest of the fleet to T'imo 3. ( Temu ) Once at T'imo 3 they see what looks like a anather farming world defenseless and ripe for the takeing. “Alll sshipss destrroy the civilian ship's.” Ordered K'tanu. The Vasari killed all ships in orbit then moved in and opened fire on the planet just as the Kansun arrived. “Kansun take carre of thisss worldsss Advent infestation asss we go to destrrroy the Advent of the world they call Galan Then stand by at T'imo 1 until we returrrn.” Said K'tanu. “Yesss Clan Lorrrd.” Said The Captan of the Kansun. The vasari ships moved to T'imo 1 and started there jump to Galan. In phase space for 8 weeks K'tanu and V'anu speak of old times. “I rrememberr when we had ourrr own sssystem beforre the Advent Came.” Said V'anu as he spat the last words. “Yesss they rrravaged ourr Clan but now we ssshall have ourrr rrrevenge we shall rrule again frrom therre own sssystem.” said K'tanu as he laughed.
Of course sir. We will run your request through security and see if they allow it. I can’t make any promises though, even if the High Psintegrat does know we’re here already, because we don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves, the lady at the desk told Setsuna.
That’s fine, I understand, Setsuna replied. He was trying to get permission to send a message from the Rebirth Temple of Communion, but was having difficulty. Outside of the Collective he could’ve gained access to the transmitter array simply because of his social rank, but his status counted for much less here. Setsuna stepped away from the desk to find a seat, where he would wait for a yes or no on his permission to use the array. He sat on a nearby bench and looked around him. Despite how similar it was to all other Advent Temples, Setsuna felt slightly uncomfortable. Normal humans he could deal with, but Advent who had a different psychic network was beyond his experience. What could have caused them to leave the Unity? What had happened in Distant Stars to cause this previously unheard-of phenomenon? Setsuna’s musings were interrupted by the door to the waiting room sliding open, and two soldiers stepping smartly in. They walked towards Setsuna, one hanging back with his rifle, obviously ready for anything violent on Setsuna’s part.
“Good morning sir,” the soldiers who approached him said, “if you would come with us, please. Knight-Reaver Thenos Garr wants to speak with you.”
“I thought he would eventually,” Setsuna replied, deciding that if the man with the gun started the conversation verbally, it would be good to be respectful and continue it that way, “are you to take me to him?”
“Indeed we are sir. There is a shuttle waiting for us in the hangar.”
In the shuttle, Setsuna watched his escorts. They wore urban combats, but one of them had the sleeves rolled up, showing some kind of armoured jumpsuit beneath. Setsuna decided to ask Thenos about these when they met. Setsuna, looking at the soldiers’ berets, saw their cap-stars.
“Are you from the Seer Guardians?” Setsuna asked, recognising the star on their berets.
“Yeah,” one of the soldiers said, “don’t know if we’re technically still in it, if we’re not part of the Unity, but yeah, we’re Seers.”
“Hmm…” Setsuna knew that the Seers were some of the more elite soldiers that were found in the Advent marines. Thenos certainly had good soldiers, even if there weren’t that many of them.
The journey to the Revenge, flagship of Thenos’ small fleet, wasn’t a long one. Having departed the shuttle, Setsuna was taken through the ship. Eventually he arrived at a corridor which Setsuna realised, from the structure of his own ship, was the captain’s quarters. One of the soldiers had evidently already contacted Thenos psychically, as he gave a quick nod to the other, who gestured to Setsuna to head on by himself. Setsuna did, knowing full well that the soldiers would be watching him. He knew he shouldn’t feel this uneasy. Must be fear of the unknown, with the entire separate psychic network thing. Reaching the door at the end, he decided that the most formal way of making his presence known would be to knock. He did so, and the door slid open. He entered, and saw Thenos standing to greet him.
Greetings, Hierarch Chosen. I believe we have much to discuss…
Part Ten of Teir -
News –
She screamed!
<Reverse>
The hallways were dark, the sun was still yet hours away, Gelle ran, her eyes wide, she was crying. Her slippered feet swished across the floor tiles. In the dark she could see no colors at all. She ran, tears streaming down her face.
May the Creator protect us! May the Creator protect us! May the Creator protect us!!!
She ran, tears streaming down her face.
“God protect us…” she whispered under her breath as she ran.
The room was white. The dome of the room stark, a console ran about the circumference of it. White crystals embedded into the console. In the center of the domed ceiling a single large white crystal pulsed slowly, the light dim.
Then it flared.
The light circling inside the stationary crystal then branched out in twelve threads of light that angled as lightening might, in irregular jagged lines to each of the twelve drones sitting at the benches that surrounded the console/walls.
Each sat perfectly still.
Their faces expressionless under their masks.
Each dressed in a white slim overall from neck to wrists to ankles.
Each was barefoot.
Their hands played over the crystals in front of them.
Lights flared in the console as the transmission was confirmed, reconfirmed and the back sources checked and then re-checked. Each of the women in the room then dropped their hands to their sides and sat perfectly still.
In the center Sere stood absorbing the relayed transmissions from each of the other 11 at the consoles. When the re-confirmation stopped she moved. Crossing to the edge of the room and down through the access plate that led out through a series of psi locks to the Convent proper. The access tunnel opened a dialating portal that appeared at the Mother Superiors inner chamber wall. Sere stepped through into the dark and moved to the Mother. The lights came up dim as she moved across the room. The Mother stirred sleepily and opened her eyes even before Sere was halfway across the room. Her face lay on the bare sheet of the bed. She was tired. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. Sere moved silently to the edge of the bed.
The Mother turned her face from the sheet, from the press of the thin mattress underneath in the unadorned room and sat up slowly, wrinkles of the sheet pressed into the skin of her cheek.
She was getting old.
She could feel it.
The weight of rousing, the time it took to collect herself.
A hundred years ago, she would have been completely awake as the drone entered the room, now she was still collecting herself. She raised herself on stiff arms and turned her face to the drone. Sere stood there expressionless underneath her mask. Her hair was cropped short and was completely hidden by the mask. The uniform was standard and it would have been impossible to know she was a woman at all if not for her anatomical build.
“Mother?” Sere asked.
The Mother tried to turn herself out of the bed, moving her legs under the covers and pulling the over-gown from the edge of the bed around herself. She tried to speak, but her throat was still dry and only a weak sound came out. She shook her head. Soon enough she would be completely useless! Already the drone should have delivered her message and the Mother her instructions.
What was going on?
It was the middle of the night!
A stab of fear went through her.
It was never good when these kinds of things happened. Waking’s in the middle of the night. For a single stark and horrid moment she was frozen with fear.
She had felt that perhaps only a dozen times in the course of her Tenure over the last one hundred and fifty years.
The Mother nodded as quickly as she could then, her mind still partially clouded, but there was nothing for it. Sere linked.
The image in the Mother Superior’s mind blossomed into a visual image of stars.
The ships moved out of the nebulae slowly, almost as if standing still against the background of surrounding red gas and blinking stars.
Slowly, out of the red and into the black of open space.
Their shapes were exotic.
Their markings unknown.
The language of the crews incomprehensible, yet the thoughts behind them clear enough, though the pattern was unrecognizable, their thoughts jumped from one idea to another, the level of synaptic traffic was low. There were images of blood and destruction in their minds.
And joy in it.
More ships came out of the cloud, shadowed shapes that formed themselves against the red background.
They moved with a slow and deadly intent in the silence.
Smoke lay over the green world.
Smoke and debris.
A’brim huddled in the lee side of a ditch that had once carried water to the fields. J’acom leaned against the dirt side of the ditch with him, pushing a twig of reed grass between his teeth as they listened to the sounds of spiked legs of crawlers in the distance.
“How long ye figger?” J’acom frowned through black teeth, pulled the reed from his mouth and spat beside him into the dirt.
A’brim cocked his head, listening and tried to gauge the sound of spikes in the distance.
“Think they’re in Gr’evers now. “ He said and shifted the gun in his hands beside him in the dirt, making sure to keep the barrel balanced upright.
“Ten kil den I figger.” J’acom said. The other men in the long line down the length of the ditch shifted and some murmured, but nothing that was recognizable.
“Tell ‘em we wait until they’re by us before we move.” A’brim said to the air, not looking at the other man beside him, he peered above the edge of the ditch for a moment, but saw only green sky and smoke in the distance.
J’acom nodded, “Yep.”
Then leaned across to the next man down, Silas still wearing coveralls, the man still carried his field scythe. It would prove useless against the metal crawlers, but if he could get close enough in to whatever was running it, he expected it would work on their flesh as well as it did on seep grass. Silas nodded at J’acom’s words and scuttled down twenty hand spans to the next man.
There were thirty of them in the ditch. Every man in the surrounding farms out from Bascombs village, including 15 year old Tick Mauldsen who had taken over the farm after his father had died in a N’hel stampede 3 years before in a cattle run. The women and most of the children had all been sent away.
Three months ago.
When the Trawler in orbit had first appeared and the crawlers had first started dropping. Three months to take a world. It seemed little enough time to cover an entire planet. But the crawlers were efficient and moved even at their slow pace across the surface in unrelenting sweeps that left behind nothing but burned ground and destroyed buildings.
They had moved into Sel Port a month ago, there were stories that had come out that a crawler had been stopped there. And another story out of New Portage to the north that a crawler had been ambushed as it was coming across the St. Tallen river, but no news had come out of New Portage since. The radios went silent and the only news of movement was smoke on the horizon and the flood of refugees that came across the hills with packs of ragged clothes on their backs.
Gil Teesen had come out from New Portage, down across Sel Port and then inland. He had walked for weeks until his boots had holes in them and his toes stuck out the front. He had a beard and a red gash over the top of his eyes that had healed to a long brown scar. He said he’d been in a house when a crawler had come up on the abandoned farm he was staying the night in. The crawler had simply ripped the house to shreds and a gas main had exploded as Teesen had scrambled out of the basement. It had taken out the crawler which had spilled a thick red mucus over the ground as it had been torn open in the blast. The metal spiked legs had jerked like something alive as the fluid poured out of it and then it had finally stilled. He had slept the night in the field beyond the house and in the morning had gone into a rip in the side of the crawler and found dead things that he said looked like nothing human.
Then he had left, traveling overland at night, sleeping in the day as best he could, trying to find cover and bush to hide himself.
The crawlers moved in the daylight mostly. Some few still moved at night, searchlights atop the long metal machines glaring like half a dozen brilliant eyes in the dark. But mostly they moved in the daylight. He pushed hard and tried to put as much distance between himself and the crawlers as possible. They moved slowly, ponderously, like heavy fat insects gorging themselves on whatever structures they could find as they moved.
People fled, animals fled and the crawlers seemed to ignore them. Only when heavy groups of people came upon them did they react at all, but then their beams would lance out, red and brilliant gleaming for long frozen seconds in the still air. The air smoked with the heat of those beams and the air steamed around the crawlers like some innate mist that helped to shroud them. They decimated the crowds. Slicing across the ground and through people as easily as a hot knife through sweet yeet butter, the ground burned and smoked and only the charred remains of people and animals remained behind after they started to move again.
It had taken him three weeks to cross the distance from Sel Port to Gr’evers, and then to Bascombs. He was a thin man, the clothes hung from him in long folds of oversize cloth and he was barefoot by then. He had a scraggly brown grayish beard and red rimmed eyes and a slackness in his face as if he had seen too much.
He knew the machines better than any of them.
He didn’t say it was hopeless.
But he didn’t say it wasn’t.
In the half light, as they had gone into the ditch and waited, straggling men running stooped over out from the tall fields and the thin walls of barns and the houses which stood in the early light A’brim had asked him what the chances were, some people had gotten one down in Sel Port hadn’t they? And in New Portage? It was possible.
The men ran, Teesen ran easily, his long legs loping at a steady even gait. A’brim was not weak, but he was also not a runner. He quickly was out of breath and pulling long drafts of air in as he ran.
“Don’t breathe so fast.” Teesen had said as the men ran together, the long line of the others spread out in a long arc across the ground.
“It’s possible?” A’brim had asked again, huffing as he ran, trying to slow his breathing while his mind wanted to pull as much air into his aching lungs as he could.
Teesen had looked off in the sky then, chewing on his lower lip and creasing his lips into a tight line as he ran. The two of them had come up on the ditch then and threw themselves into it, landing hard against the packed side of the ditch and groaned as they landed.
“Maybe… “ Teesen had wheezed out in short breaths as the men twisted around and leaned back against the packed dirt, “…depends on how many …” He wheezed again, trying to regain some breath “… on how many come.”
“How …many… usually?” A’brim had pulled long deep breaths into his body and looked at the man and watched his face, looked at the scar that was burned into the man’s forehead and watched his eyes. They were blue now, relaxed and clear, though tired. Dark rings scored the man’s cheek bones under his eyes.
“They usually travel in small groups of three to five, sometimes though half a kil will separate them from one another. If we get one alone, not to close to the other’s we might have a chance at hurting it. It will be last minute, but we will have to get a man back into the house as they come up maybe a quarter of a kil from the house. But it’s possible.”
A’brim had nodded because he was out of breath and couldn’t answer. Both the men settled themselves back against the side of the ditch and wheezed heavy breathes into the still silence.
The other men had come into the long cut in the ground, throwing themselves in and settling into groups. J’acom had come across the field at an easy lope, pulling on a grass reed in his mouth. He had grinned as he jumped down into the ditch and nodded to the other men. He was old, easily twice A’brim’s age, but he was a wiry and hard bodied man used to a hard life on the farms. He hired out as a hand, even at his age because he had no farm of his own. He worked other’s fields and was paid, and he slept in the hollows of the trees down off the ridge line in the summers and often slept in barn’s for the winters. He carried a stenner, it was an old army rifle from the Tech factions war, some twenty years past, but hadn’t said exactly how he had ever come across it.
He was a T’Lani, like most of the men here, though some were outlanders come to start over and forget whatever it was that they had left behind them. But no one knew if Old J’acom had ever been off world or not. He had always been old and had always had the stenner. But his youth and exploits were as unknown as rumors in a small town on any planet you could name.
He dropped into the ditch and leaned next to A’brim and smiled through black teeth, then cocked his head and listened to the sound coming up over the horizon of metal spikes of crawlers.
“How long ye figger?” he asked A’brim, pulling the reed from his mouth and spitting into the dirt beside him.
A’brim nodded.
“Maybe five or six hours, you think?” He’d looked over at Teesen then, the man laying back against the side of the ditch with his eyes closed.
Teesen nodded his head slow.
“Yeah, about that.”
“Tell ‘em we wait until they’re by us before we move.” A’brim said to the air, not looking at J’acom beside him, he peered above the edge of the ditch for a moment, but saw only green sky and smoke in the distance.
“Pass it down,” A’brim had inclined his chin in a gesture to J’acom and the man had nodded back, “Try to get some sleep before they’re on us. When they get close, we’ll have to have someone get back over to the house.”
J’acom nodded again and then leaned over against Silas, huddled in the dirt in his coveralls with his legs drawn up and the scythe in the dirt between his legs.
The sun was hot overhead, the green light thick and heavy on the tall yellow grass, the twisted trunks of Bettel trees, the black soil of the ground that was smeared on every man’s clothes and hands and feet. And some faces.
Tick Mauldsen grinned as if he would never sleep.
A’brim watched the boy and wondered if that were true. If they didn’t make it here, the boy never would sleep again. He thought of Selene then, and Teir, and the Advent ship that had pulled into orbit, in a running spiral to keep ahead of the alien Trawler that had parked itself first over the equator and worked its way toward the pole.
He hoped they were ok.
He prayed they were ok.
It was all he had, sitting in the dirt worlds away that he could hope for. Then he settled down and tried to get some sleep. He sun fell heavy on him and it felt odd, trying to sleep in the middle of the day. But he closed his eyes anyway and tried to calm his breathing.
The sound woke him, and he raised up, peering over the top of the rise and saw a crawler on the far side of a hill, perhaps two klicks out. Then a metal shape rose up over the nearest hill, some five hundred hand spans distant, a spike of one of its legs pinned a Bettel tree and splintered it as it came down and through the tree and into the ground.
The house was 300 hand spans from the ditch. He turned then to look to J’acom beside him, but the man was gone. Teesen as well.
The closest man to him was Silas, eyes drawn down into a hating stare that looked out from the ditch and didn’t even see A’brim.
Others stirred down the long line and the boy Tick, held onto his hayfork with white knuckles.
The crawler pulled itself up over the rise and turned immediately for the house, its metal legs rising and falling like sledgehammers against an anvil on a hot day. The ground shook as it moved, the stalks of the things eyes weaving in half a dozen circles as it trudged toward the house and barn.
It closed the distance at an even pace, long spike legs twisting around like an insect repositioning itself, the spikes driving in with a reverberating thud each time one hit the ground in a staccato irregular rhythm.
“How long they been gone?” A’brim asked.
Silas still peered over the top of the rise, his eyes barely over the edge. He didn’t turn but said in a calm voice.
“Two hours ago.” He glanced back over at A’brim, his eyes still twisted and wide with hate, but his voice remained steady. “When the first of the crawlers came over that far hill.”
“How many?” A’brim felt his chest squeeze down then, a heaviness that he hadn’t felt in many many years. He was afraid.
Silas turned away and looked back over the top of the ditch, he brought his hand up holding the scythe and rested it against the edge.
“Eight.” His voice still calm; still detached, his mind and voice and eyes all worlds apart from one another.
“My God… !” the sound wheezed out of A’brim and he leaned back. He hadn’t really thought they could do anything at all, but he had hoped. The hope turned to dust in his mouth.
Eight!
The crawler came up on the barn then, its spiked legs leveraging up almost like arms as it closed on the barn. J’acom came running out of the barn then hollering at the top of his lungs.
“YEAH!! YEAH!! YEAH!!!” he screamed in long winded yells into the heavy green air.
The crawler half turned, its spiked legs skittering around under it.
“COME ON YOU BIG SILVER BAST-“
The barn exploded then, the crawler shivered and then several of its spike legs on the side nearest the barn collapsed, the front of its face blossomed in sudden black smoke and a ripping of metal that opened up like a seed pod opening and a gush of red mucus poured out in a long thick stream, splattering the ground as the machine continued to shake, then fell face first into the dirt in front of where the barn had been, but now only a smoking burning tower of flame arose.
J’acom scrambled to pick himself up off the ground, his legs working to get a purchase in the wet dirt, and then his foot caught under him and he pushed up, his arms swinging in long arcs at his sides and ran away from the house toward the open field.
A second crawler came up over the rise then, from the backside of the house and where the furnace of flame that had been the barn now stood, its eye stalks swirling in circular arcs as it pulled itself up and over the rise, spike legs rising and falling methodically.
As it moved toward the other crawler the house exploded in a jet of flame and debris that shook the other machine, the roof lifted off and came down over the head of the second crawler crushing the eyestalks, the machine shook its length like a wet dog and half turned toward the open field when a second explosion tore open the side of the house slamming mortar and stone into the side of the machine as it turned away with gaping holes in its side as it attempted to move out away from the fountain of flame that had been the house. It wheeled around, a high pitch whine keening from its metal frame, the spike legs rising and falling slower, it pivoted and then its legs buckled underneath it and it crashed into the ground, red mucus fluid pouring from inside, out onto the ground in a widening pool.
What had once been the house and barn, ruined searing hulks now burned, and the machines burned.
J’acom scrambled up from the edge of the yard where he had been thrown when the house blew and sprinted for the fields, two crawlers came over the edge of the rise then, almost side by side, the stalks sweeping in long arcs in front of the machines. He reached the edge of the tall grass and dived. The crawlers beams lanced out then searing into the tall grass as the machines moved forward. From the edge of the ditch A’brim saw the figure of J’acom rise up then, burning and stumble out into the yard as the machine shifted itself, moving around the burning house, its spike legs pounding into the ground.
J’acom raised his stenner and fired, several rounds going off and striking the side of the machine, scorching the side of the metal, but nothing else. The burning man lowered the gun and kept firing, crippling and then shattering one of the legs, but the machine shifted its weight, bringing the other legs forward and re-balanced. It sagged for a moment and then regained itself, moving across the ground in quick steps it raised its head with the stalks swirling above it and a beam suddenly lanced out and caught J’acom. The beam glowed for long seconds before winking out, but then it was gone, and J’acom with it.
A’brim clenched his teeth and reached for the gun beside him, his hands were shaking. He forced it down and pushed up off his back from the side of the ditch and stood up. He turned to shout something to Silas, but the old man was already over the top of the rise and moving toward the machines. The man moved two steps, his scythe still at his side when the beam hit him, glowed bright and brilliant for long seconds and then he was gone.
A’brim looked down the line of straggled men still in the ditch and shouted, “Run!” He went up over the front of the ridge, running as hard as he could toward the machines, pulling heavy lungful’s’ of air into his mouth. The ground was uneven and he stumbled as he ran.
He ran across the uneven ground, pulling at lungful’s’ of air, sweat pouring down off his forehead into his eyes, his chest heaving, his legs stumbling, trying to gain purchase in the ridged dirt. He didn’t feel it when the beam enveloped him.
Two more crawlers came over the rise on the side of the first, as their noses broke the edge of the ridge their beams flashed out. Men rose up from the ditch then, shadow figures in the small distance, some running toward the machines, others away.
The beams swept out in scorching precision, and the figures burned in the heavy thick green light of the sunlight that fell down through the trees in soft light, in the red beams that struck out in rapid and quick succession, the ground burned and smoked where they fell and did not move.
Long after the machines had moved on, the boy Tick still sat in the bottom of the ditch and cried, his arms huddled around his legs. The day had gone down into twilight and twilight into night, the air getting colder. Stars winked above the broken trees, above the smoke that still drifted in heavy wafts across the ridge. The boy sat in the bottom of the ditch and shook, partly from fear and relief, partly from the cold.
When the night was far down the other side he managed to get himself to stand, still shaking and to clamber out of the ditch.
He stood on the edge and looked out at the night, the shroud of half-light that fell out of the sky and the still smoking ruins of the house and barn and two of the crawlers. The others were gone.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, thinking about the other men, about Teesen and J’acom going back to the house and barn to blow them, of A’brim running toward the machines stumbling and silent. Of the other’s that had gone over the top then, some screaming and waving their handguns, their farm implements, their bare fists with their mouths open and screaming at the top of their lungs.
The boy turned then, back toward Bascomb and Gr’evers. He didn’t know if anything still stood back that way, more than likely not. But the machines were gone, and it made more sense to go back where they had already passed than to go where they were headed. He moved through the tall grass, stumbling, trying to get his balance under him, stiff and still shaking, crying, over the edge of the still smoking ruin and down the far slope into the burnt grass and scorched ground into the dark.
The ships moved out of the deep black toward the green world. Already the level of internal chatter had risen, the Trawler in orbit over the green planet shifted its orbit and came to a complete stop, all the engines cut, it drifted for a moment in a gravity breeze as the ships stabilizers shifted, compensating. Then it didn’t move at all.
It beamed orders down to the surface crawlers as the alien fleet slid into silent orbit.
For a moment on the surface the crawlers stopped, their stalks frozen as the transmission completed its run. And then they settled down onto their legs, pulling them back into the bodies of the crawlers and jets fired.
Slowly they rose from the surface toward orbit.
The Trawler waited silently.
The chatter between the fleet ships and the Trawler continued for several long minutes before it stopped. And then the Fleet pulled away from the planet.
A single large ill shaped Capital ship remained in orbit with the Trawler.
The rest move out of orbit, as silently as they had come, shifting direction as they turned toward one of the inner planets.
The sunlight of the green star fell out of the deep dark and bathed the planet and the alien ships in a soft green haze as they moved.
Stars winked in the far heavens.
Ignorant and unknowing.
The Mother Superior began to sob, pressing her hands into her face and rough shakes raked her. “Oh… ooohhh my God…” she sobbed and tried to stand, but could not, she sat back heavily on the bed still holding her face in her hands.
“F… fff…. Find… Gelle….” She sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh God … oh god, oh god oh god oh god…in Heaven… find Gelle and …” She stopped and sobbed, her voice failing, she cried and coughed trying to clear her throat, “tell her…” she cried, and finally pushed herself to her feet, she stumbled toward Sere and gripped the woman’s arms, she coughed again to clear her throat, “tell her to go to Teir.”
Sere steadied the Mother in her arms and gently helped her to sit again on the edge of the bed, she nodded once and left the room through the thin dark door into the hallway, closing it behind her. In her mind, she was already searching for the girl Gelle, in mid stride halfway down the hall she turned toward the ramp as she raised her head and looked up in the dark hallway to a room three floors up that she couldn’t see.
There.
Gelle ran.
Tears streaming down her face. “Oh Creator help us! Oh Creator help us! Oh Creator help us!”
She sobbed as she ran, holding her stomach and crying, down the dark hallway in the middle of the night.
She stumbled as she ran up against the door and shoved it open.
The door banged back and struck the washbasin with a heavy thud, the pitcher on the washbasin teetered and fell to the floor with a crash, shattering porcelain and water across the wooden floor.
The shadowed form of the girl bolted upright in the small bed and turned toward the door.
“T’Lan has fallen!! Oh my God help us! God help us!”
Teir screamed.
And thought that she would never stop.
DS (Personal/RP)
Invasion Prelude
Beeeeeep, beeeeep, beeeeep, beeeeeep. "Oh, that freaking alarm." Rolling over in bed to stop the alarm, he misjudged the distance and falls to the floor with a dud.
"Dammit." Then door chime begins. "Who is it!!!!!" was his loud reply.
"Carter, we got twenty minutes to get to our duty stations."
"Fuck." he said to himself. "This is gonna be an ugly day."
Bolis Sector. Fringe of TEC controlled space.
In this region of space, there is a handful of habitable planets, mostly agriculture and mining. But it also borders Vasari and Advent contested borders in which the TEC have battle back and forth in the last several years which has resulted in a buffer zone.
Since the Trade Order doesn't want to lose valuable tech in these fringe worlds, they use small sub space booster relays instead of full size broadcast centers. These relays are scattered through out Trade Space to help reduce lag times of sub space comm traffic. Usually, they use space tugs to tow them out and placed in key areas rather build in orbit like the full size versions.
Frank Carter, ensign aboard the subspace relay booster station in the Bolis sector is waking up late after a weekend of drinking over at mining colony Toro. In this part of space, Toro is the place to go for alcohol and girls, and Carter is in for a rough day today.
Carter crawls up from the floor and presses the door release and his friend enters the room.
"Damn man, again. How many times you gonna get wasted till you liver shrivels up an dies. You know Lt Burns is gonna put you on report again if your late, so get your ass together and let's go."
Carter makes his way to the shower, quickly shaves and gets a fresh uniform from the closet. His friend is waiting on him and watches the time go by.
"Come on, we got 7 minutes to get to our stations."
"All right, Christ sakes." was Carter reply. "When did you become my mother.""You still owe me 50 creds and I can't get it if you ain't making no money, so I'm protecting my investment."
"Wow, and I thought you really cared. Bastard"
His friend starts to laugh, "Come on, let's go."
Lt Samantha Burns looks up and sees Carter and Ensign Derrick Gibson come into the main control room. She glances at the time and says, "A minute to spare, I'm impressed. Get to your stations please, we need to start a diagnostic on the main array. Our efficiency down by 15% and we need to improve on it."
"Yes Sir." came the response from both men. The went to their stations and began their work for the day. After an hour goes by, Gibson and Carter are about to finish their diagnostic on the array when Gibson leans over to Carter and asks, “O.K. What did you do this time?”
“Oh my god, I was at the bar.”
“Vasari’s black hole.”
“Yeah, you been to that one?” exclaimed Carter.
“It’s the interstellar version of a ‘Jook Joint’ with dirt floors.” quipped Gibson.
“Its not that bad.”
“Yes it is.” says Gibson as he rolls his eyes.
“Any way, a trade ship pulled in and these girls just came in from another mining roid and they were looking for a good time if you know what I mean.
”Gibson looked at Carter and asked, “Were they good looking?”
“Lets just say I wouldn’t kick them out of the cryogenic sleep chamber.
”Gibson looks back as his console and says, “I don’t know, that last girl you tried to hook me up with had issues, stalking issues.”
“What are you talking about, there’s nothing wrong with her.”
“Carter, I was at a view port on station when a Kol Battleship went by with her waving at me wearing a full EVA suit at an airlock.”
“O.K. see, your just wrong with that.”
Gibson just burst out laughing and Carter follows suit. They both run a system test on the array and the reading comes back at 1.5% efficiency. “Well, we took care of that. I wonder what Burns has up her sleeve today.”
“Just give her time, you are definitely on her s-list.” says Gibson.
Carter replies, “She got the fever.”
“For you.” Gibson starts to laugh uncontrollably. “ The day when the Advent and the Vasari and us sit around a campfire making smores is the day that Sam Burns wants you.”
At the time one of the techs lean back from their console and says to Carter, “Yo, You got a private transmission, you in or out.”
“Send it over, thanks.”
The face of an older man jumps up on the screen, Gibson looks and says, “You keeping secrets from me, do I have to watch my back in the shower now."
Carter flips off Gibson and hit’s the comm panel and speaks, “Beaker, you old dog, what’s going on buddy.”
Beaker is one of the captains which ferry supplies to different post in the region and relief supplies to some of the systems in the buffer zone. He has seen his fair share of combat, especially when he runs blockades from the different factions. “Carter, how the hell are you.”
“I’m fine, what’s up?”
“First, Menina want’s me to pass a message to you. She will be on leave in two more weeks and will be looking for you on Toro.”
“Ohhhhh, I can’t wait. But you could send that in a message, what’s up?
”Maybe nothing my boy but, while I was in the buffer zone saw an Vasari task force jumping out of star’s grav well while were jumping in.”
“What?” exclaimed Carter. “Did you get readings, number of ships, heading?”
“No, we just came through a plasma storm and or long range sensors are scrambled. We just detected them when they jumped. Sorry, couldn’t be more helpful but thought I give you an heads up just in case.”
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
“Nah, I owe you for all the business you throw my way and small ’jobs’.” Beaker gives a wink.
“Anytime, just in case. Stay clear of the buffer unless you got something really important to take care of, all right.”
“I’m good, don’t have to go back for a lease 3 more weeks. Anyway take care my boy and I will let Menina know you got the message."
“Untill next time my friend, be safe.”
“Same to you Carter, Beaker out.”
Gibson looks to Carter and says, “Now what?”
Carter presses the intercom button and says, “Lt Burns to the control room.”
(DS RP)
Roesh hops a shuttle towards the moon of Finley 1, where he gets word that Todd is working aboard the military research station. On approach, an Envoy Cruiser with yellow markings indicates the likely reason for Todd's disappearance aboard the station. Soon Roesh's shuttle docks with the station and he travels the short distance necessary to find Todd working alongside Lieutenant Batson.
"I see we have company," Roesh announces himself.
"Yeah," Todd replies, "this is Lieutenant Batson for the David's Lions. He brought us something fun to work on."
Batson rises from his station and extends his hand towards Roesh, who gladly takes it and gives it a firm shake.
"What are we working on for you today?" Roesh asks.
"Fast tracking turrets for the battleships," Batson answers. "We're hoping to integrate the same targeting system as the Argonevs, but in a more compartmentalized system."
Roesh momentarily peers at the specs brought up on the screens and says, "Interesting idea. What are we thinking to get in return for this little project?"
"I was suppose to discuss that with you," Batson says before glancing between his work station and Todd.
Todd takes notice of the lieutenant's uncertainty and waves, "Go ahead. We'll keep working and you can catch up later."
Batson takes to the monitor where the datapad is installed and gently fiddles with the controls, avoiding any critical mistakes until he figures out how to bring up particular pieces of information. Schematics are raised for thin devices, complex in internal nature, but simplified on the outside for a wide range of applications.
"The admiral wanted me to offer anti-gravity decking in exchange for the turret system, so you can colonize the gas giants you have in this system," Batson explains.
Roesh nods, "Pretty nice trade there. That should boost our production pretty nicely. Do you happen to have any upgrades available?"
Batson shrugs, "This was all I was given. I guess the admiral wants to keep a hold of some pieces for future use."
Roesh smiles, "It was smart for him to hold on to a bargaining chip, but pretty poor diplomacy for you to show the chip."
Batson's eyes widen, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think he..."
Roesh reaches out, patting Batson firmly on the shoulder, "Don't worry yourself. I understand. You're an engineer and I'm sure you do a great job of it. Yes, gas giant colonization would be well worth the cost of the development. What about deployment of the turrets?"
Batson shrugs again, "He didn't mention anything about that."
"I guess we'll just cross that bridge when we get there," Roesh says with a nod. "Well, I'll leave you men to your work, and let me know how the results turn out."
"Well, that's not all I have to tell you," Batson continues.
"Oh? Did you have another project in mind?"
"No," Batson says, "the David's Lions recently traded worlds with the Vasari and we're having a few problems."
"I see," Roesh crosses his arms, "I think I might have heard a little something about this. What's the problem?"
"We now have four crystal asteroids, instead of two crystal and two metal. We also have to dedicate the production of one asteroid to the Vasari, so that leaves us with a lot less material... crystal only material," Batson informs as he finds the specific numbers concerning the crystal production.
"I don't think that's much of a problem," Roesh says. "Crystal has it's value and you produce enough to cover your costs. It's going to be a bigger cut, proportionally, but enough."
Batson adds, "Well, we also lost a few thousand men and a couple of vessels. We're going to put some of the extra logistical support towards raising one of the vessels, but we're expecting a surplus of needed food and medical supplies within the next few shipments, so the admiral was thinking to cut costs or reallocate our costs."
Roesh's eyebrows perk up, "I'm sorry you lost so many men. Hope it wasn't in vain."
Batson shakes his head, "Not sure if it could be avoided, but since we have the extra revenue, we could use a few other things."
"Such as?"
Batson draws up a laundry list of items and quantities, "The most urgent are components for a massive overhaul of one capital vessel. Beyond that, we're looking to build as quickly as possible on the new planet and prefabricated parts would be a boon. We're skimping on the inessentials, but I'm sure they'll be at the bottom of the list when all other things are taken care of."
"What counts as inessential to your men?" Roesh asks.
Batson smiles, "The admiral likes tea. I think recently he's been on a ceylon kick, but I'm not sure. We ran out just under a week ago, but with things the way they are, tea is beyond luxury."
Roesh nods, "Understood. Well, if your men keep their resources coming in at the normal quota, then I can make sure they get what they need to get themselves set up in their new home. Thanks for the walkthrough... Batson, was it?"
"Yes, sir."
Roesh extends his hand and the two shake, "I'll make sure things are taken care of. Go ahead and get back to helping Todd. See if you can teach him a thing or two." With a smile he sends Batson back to his work station and departs the scene with the conversation running again through his mind.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
