The desk was simple, the office sparse; a large holographic view-screen and a few miscellaneous pieces of ‘art’ to fill up the empty space were all else that occupied it. The Grand Admiral preferred it that way.
There was a great deal of work to do; presently he was occupied writing a letter of some considerable import. The interruption for the comm. system was unwelcome, more so because he had a damn good idea about what was going to be said.
“Speak quickly!�
“Sir, this is Lieutenant Commander Haru.�
“Get to the point, Haru.�
“Sir, our readings indicate that the Hosho has detached from the Spellhold Instillation, and is prepping a jump to…�
“I am well aware of the situation, Lieutenant.�
“Should I contact the station?�
“Do as you wish, though there are only the dead to answer.�
“What! When?�
“A few hours, I should think,� The Grand Admiral turned momentarily to observe the holographic display, which currently was attuned to depict a variety of corpses locked in various states of horrific agony. “Commodore Ite was kind enough to dispatch them, albeit prematurely; and now it seems he’s decided to take our prize back to Baramua.�
“But… sir, this will ruin everything!�
“Relax. Nothing has changed; we can still salvage this operation.�
“What do you mean, salvage the operation?! Incriminating evidence is flying to Ilë Sornë as we speak, we’re fucking doomed!�
“I said relax, Lieutenant! They’re going to kill him when he gets there, I shall see to it. As for Konstantin, we can still buy peace with his corpse… there should be something left of it. Once that is out of the way all we have to worry about is finishing off the council. How goes our little trap?�
“Umm… well… uh, the council’s support is down to 41% after the Southern Headquarters thing… and, uh… nobody is really satisfied with the reprisal they ordered either, conservatives see it as prodding a giant, and the militants don’t think we’ve done enough to suppress their retaliatory capabilities. Umm… also their claim to have ordered the Baramua operation, has come under increasing fire from the military, they’re now openly implying it’s untrue, and our sources say that most of the population doesn’t believe it either. The Ade Clan has withdrawn their support and membership, as has Nebu.�
“Hmm… strange bedfellows, one might say. Very well, you are to wait until we clear 40%, then inform our friend to move into the next phase. Send a strike force to Spellhold to recover Konstantin; have them rough the place up also… make it look as though there were a fight, if the Hosho is still there they are to destroy it.�
“But the samples sir?!�
“Irrelevant. We have their genome, they can be rebuilt.�
“Affirmative, sir.� His tone was skeptical, but he kept his place.
“Also, wait about… ten minutes,� he made a slight gesture with his arm. “Then contact the Sornei military. Inform them that a rogue Nobuseri vessel is about to attack at Baramua.�
“But… won’t they think it’s a trap?�
“It doesn’t matter, this is only to cover our bases and prevent an immediate counterattack. Besides, I’ve made… other arrangements.�
If the man wondered what the Admiral meant by that last statement, he did not give voice to his query, “Yes, sir. As you command.�
The comm. system silenced, and for a moment the Admiral contemplated how he might dispose of Haru now that he had essentially outlived his usefulness. He was a good officer, but he knew far too much. Oh well, a thought for another time perhaps… He put the finishing touches on his letter…
***
We suffer… they do not. We die… they live. We are slaves… they are free. They forget… but we remember… and now they will remember one thousand fold. Death… death to those who nothing did… death to the betrayers. They will suffer… they will all suffer! And they will understand as they die… vengeance descends upon you!
Those damn fish had been going on like this for what seemed like hours. Loading thousands of liters of water into a hanger, and prepping a battleship for launch by yourself was hard enough without the distraction of a malevolent chorus. But what was especially annoying… what really got to him… was that every time he tried to think about anything other then getting those freaks to Baramua, they would crank the pain in his cranium way up… and it wasn’t type of thing you could ignore either.
Still, Ite had managed to squeeze off a few machinations. The best course of action now, would probably be to fake his own death, which presented a few problems. Namely how, when, and so forth; he knew that this whole assault on Baramua thing probably provided him an opportunity, but the fishy bastards hadn’t given him a chance to think it through. Actually, he probably shouldn’t call them ‘fish’ anymore, they looked more like organ sacks… giant, transparent, cancerous, testicles… or a mutant Khmix. A twinge of pain ran through his cranium, apparently they didn’t like it when he thought of them that way.
The ship had detached a while ago, if he had a crew he could have jumped in a few seconds; as it was he had spent the last ten minutes or so running from console to console. The coordinates he input were the same as last time, or close enough anyway… planets don’t typically hold still.
More pain… the freaks were getting impatient, but Ite still had one more thing to do before they could leave. It stung horribly… he was cutting this one close. Ite dialed the console as rapidly as he had ever done, finally compressing the key which read: ‘initiate.’
And the darkest most sinister opera in Ite’s collection roared over the intercom.
For a moment even the freaks seemed taken aback by the malice which festered in his mind. A smile crept across his face, the white light of FTL engulfed the deck, “The maw of Sheol welcomes us… do not be afraid, for this is my domain… and no one can stop me.�
Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
I've only ever asked God for one thing: "Lord, make my enemies ridiculous," and he granted my request.
My immediate advice is to go buy Brewsters. It is a dictionary, and a quite fine one. This you should use to bludgeon yourself comatose each and every night, in the faint hope that some of the knowledge contained in it might be transferred. If not, it would at least leave you damaged enough that you wouldn't be coming here and violate our senses with your retarded babble.
-
Arizona Nova
- GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD!
- Posts: 3703
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:11 pm
- Prefix: The Reconstituted Kingdom
- Name: Arizona Nova
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
-=Barclay System Hyperspace
As the Hosho sped on its fell flight toward Baramua, waiting between it and its target were a ring of mines, within hyperspace itself. Set there after the first attack, these mines were of a special kind, a new prototype - hyperspace gravity mines. Basic FTLi worked on a principle that intense sources of gravity could pull ships back into realspace; the mines worked somewhat like that. Instead of pulling a vessel into realspace, when it had sighted an unauthorized vessel the mine would go off, creating intense gravitational pull right in hyperpspace. The delicate trajectories and equations involved in FTL navigation would then all of the sudden go to pot.
Ideally, these mines would be set ahead of a massive invading fleet; once the first unauthorized vessels broke through, they would go off and everyone following would be slungshot about and out the system at random, breaking up the attack and allowing what ships might survive the hyperspace crashes that would follow to be mopped up at overwhelming odds, outnumbered and hopefully outgunned.
A massive battlefleet was not what was heading to Baramua though, and it just so happened that the clutch of mines standing in the Hosho's way had a momentary hesitation in their software; an error fixed readily enough by the computer systems but one which existed long enough that the Hosho slipped past the gamut unscathed. Only too late did the mines realize that particular error, but not wanting to have nothing to show for all their trouble, the whole of them went off. Nothing was getting in or out of this system for a while.
-=Fleetcom, New Constantinople
High Admiral John Hyce stood almost alone on the deck of the Kerith Ravine. The ancient battleship, last surviving of the Hyperion line, now hung in low orbit of New Constantinople, a behemoth chrome blimp warning of impeding doom. When this doom was going to strike was, however, seemingly undecided. No follow-up attack came after the gate fiasco. It really was driving the Admirality mad.
"Sir," spoke up the ensign at communications - Robert, was it? No matter - "We've got a message incoming from the DC at Kelwynd, top priority."
Hyce looked down at his console. "Patch it through to me," he ordered.
The Nobuseri Grand Admiral's message appeared on the screen, and a few lines in Hyce's eyes went wide.
"Go to full alert," he ordered, "We are under attack!"
Klaxons began going off as Hyce oversaw the fleet condition change himself. He felt it as the ship slowly, painfully began to pull itself up, out of the cloying gravity of the world below and into the free void of space. Millions looked up in wonder as massive jets of plasma flame roared forth from the massive engines as the hull sparkled in the sun and haze.
"Confirming that message sir," said Ensign Robert again. "Just got a notification - the grav mine string around Barclay has gone off."
"Dammit," cursed Hyce. "There is no way we're getting in there now. What do we have on local defense?"
"We have some ships in system, but I doubt they'd get to Baramua in time on non-FTL power."
Hyce sat down in the Admiral's chair. It was going to be a very long day.
-=Nomramis base, Baramua
Meanwhile, Anikar had since taken a short nap to try and ward off spacer lag, one of the annoying side effects of travel. She had just begun to drift off when the console on her desk rang out a shrill message notification - urgent, and important. She pulled herself quickly up and strode over to it, bringing the message to the fore. Scanning it, her own eyes widened. This attack wasn't a surprise; she knew something was bound to happen soon. The problem was that she now had little time.
She rushed out of her room and quickly found Stanimir in the lounge.
"Mr. Ryszard," she began hurriedly, "We need to get to the city, now."
Stanimir looked up in surprise. "Why?"
"Is the city operational," she continued, insistent.
"Well, it'll hold integrity out of the water, and the defence systems are up..."
"We go now. This planet is under attack, and likely we are the only ones with the sufficient firepower to meet it. Gather your crew; it will be a trick to keep everything on that mountain running with all you have as is."
Stanimir now leapt up, rushing over to a console and activating battle alarms. Quickly the crew assembled, and he barked out orders and directions, dividing them up and getting them all in the subs.
The little vessels sped toward the looming shadow in the watery gloom; the mountain Nomramis, soon, hopefully, to be known as the City of Nomramis. The submarines quickly pulled into their docks, and their crews piled into the yet-untried tram system that would take them all to the controls. Stanimir, Anikar, and a small group headed to the central control system deep in the heart of the city. Slowly things came online across the whole structure, strings of lights illuminating the streets and extreme points of the mountain, disturbing some of the fish.
In the central control room, Stanimir stood suspensefully over the main control panel. While not responsible for the defenses, it controlled the most critical element to this city - altitude. Anikar gave him the nod, and he threw forward the switch. The many repulsors ringing the great mountain roared to life, and slowly the mountain began its ascent. Tensely the crew waited as the great bulk accelerated through the water, groans and cracking noises resonating through the entirety as the construct battled tons of water and inertia itself. Slowly the water grew more light, as they gained the depth where the sun still shone. Finally, the first spires broke the surface, and in a massive explosion of tons of water, the majority of the mountain itself came out, cascades being flung high into the air. For a few tense moments, no one stirred. The mountain groaned as it readjusted to the greatly decreased pressure, but it held. Stanimir, who had held his breath for the greater part of the ascent, released it in a rush. He pushed to increase the altitude to a good cruising height, and there, they would wait for the blow.
The Hosho arrived not long after, and foruitiously, not far away. The mountain began to pull slowly toward it, the gun placements popping out of pavement and building scaffoldings, until the half-built city bristled with them.
As the Hosho sped on its fell flight toward Baramua, waiting between it and its target were a ring of mines, within hyperspace itself. Set there after the first attack, these mines were of a special kind, a new prototype - hyperspace gravity mines. Basic FTLi worked on a principle that intense sources of gravity could pull ships back into realspace; the mines worked somewhat like that. Instead of pulling a vessel into realspace, when it had sighted an unauthorized vessel the mine would go off, creating intense gravitational pull right in hyperpspace. The delicate trajectories and equations involved in FTL navigation would then all of the sudden go to pot.
Ideally, these mines would be set ahead of a massive invading fleet; once the first unauthorized vessels broke through, they would go off and everyone following would be slungshot about and out the system at random, breaking up the attack and allowing what ships might survive the hyperspace crashes that would follow to be mopped up at overwhelming odds, outnumbered and hopefully outgunned.
A massive battlefleet was not what was heading to Baramua though, and it just so happened that the clutch of mines standing in the Hosho's way had a momentary hesitation in their software; an error fixed readily enough by the computer systems but one which existed long enough that the Hosho slipped past the gamut unscathed. Only too late did the mines realize that particular error, but not wanting to have nothing to show for all their trouble, the whole of them went off. Nothing was getting in or out of this system for a while.
-=Fleetcom, New Constantinople
High Admiral John Hyce stood almost alone on the deck of the Kerith Ravine. The ancient battleship, last surviving of the Hyperion line, now hung in low orbit of New Constantinople, a behemoth chrome blimp warning of impeding doom. When this doom was going to strike was, however, seemingly undecided. No follow-up attack came after the gate fiasco. It really was driving the Admirality mad.
"Sir," spoke up the ensign at communications - Robert, was it? No matter - "We've got a message incoming from the DC at Kelwynd, top priority."
Hyce looked down at his console. "Patch it through to me," he ordered.
The Nobuseri Grand Admiral's message appeared on the screen, and a few lines in Hyce's eyes went wide.
"Go to full alert," he ordered, "We are under attack!"
Klaxons began going off as Hyce oversaw the fleet condition change himself. He felt it as the ship slowly, painfully began to pull itself up, out of the cloying gravity of the world below and into the free void of space. Millions looked up in wonder as massive jets of plasma flame roared forth from the massive engines as the hull sparkled in the sun and haze.
"Confirming that message sir," said Ensign Robert again. "Just got a notification - the grav mine string around Barclay has gone off."
"Dammit," cursed Hyce. "There is no way we're getting in there now. What do we have on local defense?"
"We have some ships in system, but I doubt they'd get to Baramua in time on non-FTL power."
Hyce sat down in the Admiral's chair. It was going to be a very long day.
-=Nomramis base, Baramua
Meanwhile, Anikar had since taken a short nap to try and ward off spacer lag, one of the annoying side effects of travel. She had just begun to drift off when the console on her desk rang out a shrill message notification - urgent, and important. She pulled herself quickly up and strode over to it, bringing the message to the fore. Scanning it, her own eyes widened. This attack wasn't a surprise; she knew something was bound to happen soon. The problem was that she now had little time.
She rushed out of her room and quickly found Stanimir in the lounge.
"Mr. Ryszard," she began hurriedly, "We need to get to the city, now."
Stanimir looked up in surprise. "Why?"
"Is the city operational," she continued, insistent.
"Well, it'll hold integrity out of the water, and the defence systems are up..."
"We go now. This planet is under attack, and likely we are the only ones with the sufficient firepower to meet it. Gather your crew; it will be a trick to keep everything on that mountain running with all you have as is."
Stanimir now leapt up, rushing over to a console and activating battle alarms. Quickly the crew assembled, and he barked out orders and directions, dividing them up and getting them all in the subs.
The little vessels sped toward the looming shadow in the watery gloom; the mountain Nomramis, soon, hopefully, to be known as the City of Nomramis. The submarines quickly pulled into their docks, and their crews piled into the yet-untried tram system that would take them all to the controls. Stanimir, Anikar, and a small group headed to the central control system deep in the heart of the city. Slowly things came online across the whole structure, strings of lights illuminating the streets and extreme points of the mountain, disturbing some of the fish.
In the central control room, Stanimir stood suspensefully over the main control panel. While not responsible for the defenses, it controlled the most critical element to this city - altitude. Anikar gave him the nod, and he threw forward the switch. The many repulsors ringing the great mountain roared to life, and slowly the mountain began its ascent. Tensely the crew waited as the great bulk accelerated through the water, groans and cracking noises resonating through the entirety as the construct battled tons of water and inertia itself. Slowly the water grew more light, as they gained the depth where the sun still shone. Finally, the first spires broke the surface, and in a massive explosion of tons of water, the majority of the mountain itself came out, cascades being flung high into the air. For a few tense moments, no one stirred. The mountain groaned as it readjusted to the greatly decreased pressure, but it held. Stanimir, who had held his breath for the greater part of the ascent, released it in a rush. He pushed to increase the altitude to a good cruising height, and there, they would wait for the blow.
The Hosho arrived not long after, and foruitiously, not far away. The mountain began to pull slowly toward it, the gun placements popping out of pavement and building scaffoldings, until the half-built city bristled with them.
[center]Wit ye well, that when no good men remain to stand against those who choose evil, what will remain to restrain them from unleashing their dark designs?[/center]
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
The Hosho broke through at the waters surface, its immense displacement field swirling outward, instantly thrusting aside water, cloud, and air. The blast would be seen, heard, and, for an unlucky few, felt many kilometers away – It wasn’t subtle… but then, it didn’t have to be… not this time.
Ite searched his surroundings, looking for something to kill; preferably something that would justify an anti-capital round, and bathe this wretched seascape in fire. It was a waste of time, time he didn’t have, but in his current mental state this was irrelevant; the only thing which mattered now was glory. Besides, since he had started to think this way the fish had more or less left him alone, they seemed almost… scared of him.
Or maybe it was just nostalgia at their return… in any case his mind was free of their tyrannical supervision for the moment, for some reason he still had a headache though. He tried to calm down and come up with something resembling a plan. Given that the whole fucking Sornei armada was probably on its merry old way to his position, remaining here would be bad. Then again, the fish wouldn’t just let him go either… well… fuck them! They can stay if they want to, he was leaving. He could probably just ditch them… they were rather hell-bent on coming here after all, but that would require parking on the waters surface, lowering shields, equalizing pressure, and so fourth, and Ite didn’t really have a lot of time. Without a crew it would take even longer. Well, might as well get started then…
“Whoa…!� A very strange sensation came over him… it was like a fast moving object had just passed only centimeters from his head, missing him, but creating a powerful vortex of air… it wasn’t physical though. For a moment Ite though he had imagined it, he tried to remember when his last meal had been, wondering if perhaps he was suffering from physical exhaustion, but then it happened again. The third blast felt even closer, he distinctly felt a twinge of malice with it also. Damn fish! What the fuck were they doing?!
Over the next few minutes the sensations increased, Ite could make out two distinctive factions: one seemed a mixture of euphoria, hate, and grief; the other was sadness mixed with determination. It wasn’t terribly difficult to figure out what was going on. The freaks were fighting with the locals. Great, just fucking great! The whole thing made the already tedious task before him even more frustrating. It was hard enough doing the job of 30 odd men in record time without being in a damn psionic war. He felt like a soldier on some ancient battlefield being shelled by enemy artillery, knowing that at any moment he could instantly be killed by just a single stray thought. Such were their power.
The vessel shook and Ite’s head cascaded into a nearby console. Blood trickled down from his forehead into his left eye, “Oh WHAT NOW!!� He sprinted to the Bridge’s primary sensor display, and stared in disbelief at the data it rendered. “Okay… I’m under attack… by a rock… a very big rock, with guns.� He twitched a little before punching the keypad, breaking it and imbedding several small pieces of plastic in his fist. “Shit!� He rushed across the bridge in an effort to raise shields before the bastards blew him apart, another blast temporarily halted his movements, followed by yet another wave of psionic vertigo, before finally reaching his objective and temporarily saving his ass.
“Well,� he said as he strutted confidently towards fire-control, “at least now I can have some fun…� The auto-targeting system had already locked on to the new ‘unknown hostile,’ all that remained was to compress the blinking red ‘fire’ key. He did so gladly.
Ite searched his surroundings, looking for something to kill; preferably something that would justify an anti-capital round, and bathe this wretched seascape in fire. It was a waste of time, time he didn’t have, but in his current mental state this was irrelevant; the only thing which mattered now was glory. Besides, since he had started to think this way the fish had more or less left him alone, they seemed almost… scared of him.
Or maybe it was just nostalgia at their return… in any case his mind was free of their tyrannical supervision for the moment, for some reason he still had a headache though. He tried to calm down and come up with something resembling a plan. Given that the whole fucking Sornei armada was probably on its merry old way to his position, remaining here would be bad. Then again, the fish wouldn’t just let him go either… well… fuck them! They can stay if they want to, he was leaving. He could probably just ditch them… they were rather hell-bent on coming here after all, but that would require parking on the waters surface, lowering shields, equalizing pressure, and so fourth, and Ite didn’t really have a lot of time. Without a crew it would take even longer. Well, might as well get started then…
“Whoa…!� A very strange sensation came over him… it was like a fast moving object had just passed only centimeters from his head, missing him, but creating a powerful vortex of air… it wasn’t physical though. For a moment Ite though he had imagined it, he tried to remember when his last meal had been, wondering if perhaps he was suffering from physical exhaustion, but then it happened again. The third blast felt even closer, he distinctly felt a twinge of malice with it also. Damn fish! What the fuck were they doing?!
Over the next few minutes the sensations increased, Ite could make out two distinctive factions: one seemed a mixture of euphoria, hate, and grief; the other was sadness mixed with determination. It wasn’t terribly difficult to figure out what was going on. The freaks were fighting with the locals. Great, just fucking great! The whole thing made the already tedious task before him even more frustrating. It was hard enough doing the job of 30 odd men in record time without being in a damn psionic war. He felt like a soldier on some ancient battlefield being shelled by enemy artillery, knowing that at any moment he could instantly be killed by just a single stray thought. Such were their power.
The vessel shook and Ite’s head cascaded into a nearby console. Blood trickled down from his forehead into his left eye, “Oh WHAT NOW!!� He sprinted to the Bridge’s primary sensor display, and stared in disbelief at the data it rendered. “Okay… I’m under attack… by a rock… a very big rock, with guns.� He twitched a little before punching the keypad, breaking it and imbedding several small pieces of plastic in his fist. “Shit!� He rushed across the bridge in an effort to raise shields before the bastards blew him apart, another blast temporarily halted his movements, followed by yet another wave of psionic vertigo, before finally reaching his objective and temporarily saving his ass.
“Well,� he said as he strutted confidently towards fire-control, “at least now I can have some fun…� The auto-targeting system had already locked on to the new ‘unknown hostile,’ all that remained was to compress the blinking red ‘fire’ key. He did so gladly.
I've only ever asked God for one thing: "Lord, make my enemies ridiculous," and he granted my request.
My immediate advice is to go buy Brewsters. It is a dictionary, and a quite fine one. This you should use to bludgeon yourself comatose each and every night, in the faint hope that some of the knowledge contained in it might be transferred. If not, it would at least leave you damaged enough that you wouldn't be coming here and violate our senses with your retarded babble.
-
Arizona Nova
- GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD!
- Posts: 3703
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:11 pm
- Prefix: The Reconstituted Kingdom
- Name: Arizona Nova
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
As Nomramis drew closer to the ship, most of the crew in the control room fell to their knees in agony as the first attacks of the malevolent Tzoy washed over them. Anikar stolidly kept to her feet, grimacing, and her eyes flashed. The pain left the crew and they regained their footing.
"What was that?" asked Stanimir groggily.
"Tzoy," said Anikar warily, "but twisted beyond belief. We would be dead if they had focused their full power upon just us. I have extended protection to all of you here though, for the time being."
Further explanation was cut short as the first rounds of the Nobuseri battleship slammed into the shields.
"Report!" barked Stanimir.
"Shields down to 72%, recyclers online,"
"Well send the bastards our love anyway!" yelled Stanimir. "Return fire!"
The hundreds of turrets dotting the city dutifully blasted bright-green jets of high-energy plasma-based love at the Hosho, cascading across its shields with arcs and crackles that would have deafened anyone who heard it without proper ear protection.
The bridge crew collectively winced and grimaced as new twinges of pain, weaker but sharper than before, swept over them. Anikar herself twitched a little, a bead of sweat forming on her brow, as she exherted her will to fend off the attacks of the maddened Tzoy.
Another round of Nobuseri fire hit, but this time significantly less. Stanimir rushed from the unmanned consoles one to the next, keeping an eye on the integrity of the mountain, as well as their attacker.
"That wasn't anywhere near the strength of their first wave," he commented. "What is the holdup?"
Anikar replied, "There is only one human on that ship, Stanimir. They have no other crew to operate its systems."
"What was that?" asked Stanimir groggily.
"Tzoy," said Anikar warily, "but twisted beyond belief. We would be dead if they had focused their full power upon just us. I have extended protection to all of you here though, for the time being."
Further explanation was cut short as the first rounds of the Nobuseri battleship slammed into the shields.
"Report!" barked Stanimir.
"Shields down to 72%, recyclers online,"
"Well send the bastards our love anyway!" yelled Stanimir. "Return fire!"
The hundreds of turrets dotting the city dutifully blasted bright-green jets of high-energy plasma-based love at the Hosho, cascading across its shields with arcs and crackles that would have deafened anyone who heard it without proper ear protection.
The bridge crew collectively winced and grimaced as new twinges of pain, weaker but sharper than before, swept over them. Anikar herself twitched a little, a bead of sweat forming on her brow, as she exherted her will to fend off the attacks of the maddened Tzoy.
Another round of Nobuseri fire hit, but this time significantly less. Stanimir rushed from the unmanned consoles one to the next, keeping an eye on the integrity of the mountain, as well as their attacker.
"That wasn't anywhere near the strength of their first wave," he commented. "What is the holdup?"
Anikar replied, "There is only one human on that ship, Stanimir. They have no other crew to operate its systems."
[center]Wit ye well, that when no good men remain to stand against those who choose evil, what will remain to restrain them from unleashing their dark designs?[/center]
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
“Oh, of course! It already has guns and can fly, so why not shields also?! We wouldn’t want our precious rock to get dirty or chipped now would we?! That would be fucking tragic!�
Ite struggled to keep up the barrage, despite the lack of assisting personnel or any real expertise at gunnery, “Irreconcilable ordinance error, what the hell does that mean! It’s a 180cm shell in a 180cm cannon! What’s the fucking problem!� Ite slammed his clenched fist a good 5cm into the display adjacent to him, sending an impressive electrical jolt cascading down his arm, and further imbedding small pieces of metal and plastic into his flesh. “Damn it all!� He moved to the next console.
“Okay Ite, there’s a time for random violence, and a time for calculated violence, and now is definitely the second.� He tried to gain a clear perspective on the situation based on the available data. He glanced out the bridge’s transmetal window at the greenish bolts that periodically fizzled into the Hosho’s shields. He didn’t need to look at the shield console to comprehend his predicament, “see that children,� he said nonchalantly and with a just a hint of irritation in his voice, “that’s called ‘withering fire,’ and if your shields regenerate real fast – like mine do – it’s a good thing because it means you have a little bit more time… of course, it also means that your doom is fucking inevitable.�
He pondered his options: If his estimations were correct then – assuming that he was able to double his current fire output, micromanage the shields to get the most out of them, and maneuver into a more favorable position – he might stand a chance. Unfortunately that would require at least three of him. FTL with the Tzoy still on board was out of the question, they’d kill him as soon as they got to the other side, and that’s assuming they weren’t already being inhibited. He probably could outrun the behemoth on conventional drives, but that would only serve as a stalling method until the main Sornei fleet arrived, that and the freaks surely wouldn’t take kindly to him fleeing. Unloading them safely into the ocean with that thing hanging around was impossible, and – distracted as they were – they still might be able to kill him if he tried to ‘get rid’ of them in some other fashion. “Well fuck, it’s bloody hopeless…�
He smiled, “how interesting…� All right, time to figure out Plan B then… The Hosho is still faster then that ugly pile of petro, we can’t run but maybe the freaks will tolerate evasion. If this ship was anything like his last command then there would to be an appropriate autopilot subroutine, so all that remained was to find and activate it. He rushed to the navigation console and started working.
The ship banked skyward as its thrusters erupted into life. Its tremendous mass tearing forward into the clouds as several incoming rounds passed harmlessly in its wake; a good fortune that the enemy would surely take care not to repeat, could they avoid it. Ite was oblivious to the motion, save for some nondescript knowledge that a similar movement ought to have taken place; the inertial dampeners inhibited a more specific understanding and his concentration lie elsewhere. He moved returned to Fire Control, “reload, fire, reload, fire… that’s all you fucking need to do! Stop asking for manual input damn it!� Ite officially hated this machine, “I will find the engineer who designed this impudent contraption… and I will kill him with fire!�
After much frustration Ite was able to throw together some excuse for an auto-routine that, he hoped, would keep firing in his absence for more then two or three volleys.
Again the hull shook violently, as the shield collapsed momentarily and then reconstituted. Given that the system was, by now, more or less depleted, Ite expected this to be an increasingly frequent occurrence; though he had hoped to have slightly more time. He rushed to activate a reserve charge that would temporarily restore them to a more dependable status, but all stalling aside the shields would probably fail soon, and Ite was still lacking a method of escape.
But not to worry, though the Nobuseri have always given preference to Mecha, they do have fighters, and damn good ones at that. Now that Ite had bought a little time he was free to search the hangar registry for a ride suitable to his… refined tastes.
“What… the… hell!� Damn it, he should have known! Everything, every last god forsaken fighter, ‘transferred!’ Under the orders of the Grand Admiral, just prior to the Baramua Op. the whole damn hangar had been cleared. How the hell could that bastard have seen so far ahead!? No… it wasn’t possible, no one could have predicted all this… of course he wouldn’t risk loosing his precious fighters on a suicide mission, fucking scrooge.
Ite racked his mind: So what then, an escape pod? No, he’d be picked up the moment he launched, besides the Admiral had probably taken all of those as well. Wait, what’s this… Success! Registry shows one fighter still docked in the reserve launch bay. The Gedan-barai, it’s a… it’s a… it’s a Type 4 Kihon Class Stellar Fighter… “Shit!�
It wasn’t that it was old, Ite could deal with that, it was that it was so very, very old. Calling it an antique would be generous, the thing was bloody relic from before the Shogunate. Still, it did meet the requirements… checklist:
Atmospheric flight – Check
Can break orbit – Check… probably
FTL capable – well, in that it did, technically, go faster then light… Check.
“Fuck it, it’ll do!�
The blast doors opened, and Ite exited the bridge. “Were I a Captain, I would be obligated to stay here and die,� he thought aloud, “but I am a Commodore, and we live forever!�
Ite struggled to keep up the barrage, despite the lack of assisting personnel or any real expertise at gunnery, “Irreconcilable ordinance error, what the hell does that mean! It’s a 180cm shell in a 180cm cannon! What’s the fucking problem!� Ite slammed his clenched fist a good 5cm into the display adjacent to him, sending an impressive electrical jolt cascading down his arm, and further imbedding small pieces of metal and plastic into his flesh. “Damn it all!� He moved to the next console.
“Okay Ite, there’s a time for random violence, and a time for calculated violence, and now is definitely the second.� He tried to gain a clear perspective on the situation based on the available data. He glanced out the bridge’s transmetal window at the greenish bolts that periodically fizzled into the Hosho’s shields. He didn’t need to look at the shield console to comprehend his predicament, “see that children,� he said nonchalantly and with a just a hint of irritation in his voice, “that’s called ‘withering fire,’ and if your shields regenerate real fast – like mine do – it’s a good thing because it means you have a little bit more time… of course, it also means that your doom is fucking inevitable.�
He pondered his options: If his estimations were correct then – assuming that he was able to double his current fire output, micromanage the shields to get the most out of them, and maneuver into a more favorable position – he might stand a chance. Unfortunately that would require at least three of him. FTL with the Tzoy still on board was out of the question, they’d kill him as soon as they got to the other side, and that’s assuming they weren’t already being inhibited. He probably could outrun the behemoth on conventional drives, but that would only serve as a stalling method until the main Sornei fleet arrived, that and the freaks surely wouldn’t take kindly to him fleeing. Unloading them safely into the ocean with that thing hanging around was impossible, and – distracted as they were – they still might be able to kill him if he tried to ‘get rid’ of them in some other fashion. “Well fuck, it’s bloody hopeless…�
He smiled, “how interesting…� All right, time to figure out Plan B then… The Hosho is still faster then that ugly pile of petro, we can’t run but maybe the freaks will tolerate evasion. If this ship was anything like his last command then there would to be an appropriate autopilot subroutine, so all that remained was to find and activate it. He rushed to the navigation console and started working.
The ship banked skyward as its thrusters erupted into life. Its tremendous mass tearing forward into the clouds as several incoming rounds passed harmlessly in its wake; a good fortune that the enemy would surely take care not to repeat, could they avoid it. Ite was oblivious to the motion, save for some nondescript knowledge that a similar movement ought to have taken place; the inertial dampeners inhibited a more specific understanding and his concentration lie elsewhere. He moved returned to Fire Control, “reload, fire, reload, fire… that’s all you fucking need to do! Stop asking for manual input damn it!� Ite officially hated this machine, “I will find the engineer who designed this impudent contraption… and I will kill him with fire!�
After much frustration Ite was able to throw together some excuse for an auto-routine that, he hoped, would keep firing in his absence for more then two or three volleys.
Again the hull shook violently, as the shield collapsed momentarily and then reconstituted. Given that the system was, by now, more or less depleted, Ite expected this to be an increasingly frequent occurrence; though he had hoped to have slightly more time. He rushed to activate a reserve charge that would temporarily restore them to a more dependable status, but all stalling aside the shields would probably fail soon, and Ite was still lacking a method of escape.
But not to worry, though the Nobuseri have always given preference to Mecha, they do have fighters, and damn good ones at that. Now that Ite had bought a little time he was free to search the hangar registry for a ride suitable to his… refined tastes.
“What… the… hell!� Damn it, he should have known! Everything, every last god forsaken fighter, ‘transferred!’ Under the orders of the Grand Admiral, just prior to the Baramua Op. the whole damn hangar had been cleared. How the hell could that bastard have seen so far ahead!? No… it wasn’t possible, no one could have predicted all this… of course he wouldn’t risk loosing his precious fighters on a suicide mission, fucking scrooge.
Ite racked his mind: So what then, an escape pod? No, he’d be picked up the moment he launched, besides the Admiral had probably taken all of those as well. Wait, what’s this… Success! Registry shows one fighter still docked in the reserve launch bay. The Gedan-barai, it’s a… it’s a… it’s a Type 4 Kihon Class Stellar Fighter… “Shit!�
It wasn’t that it was old, Ite could deal with that, it was that it was so very, very old. Calling it an antique would be generous, the thing was bloody relic from before the Shogunate. Still, it did meet the requirements… checklist:
Atmospheric flight – Check
Can break orbit – Check… probably
FTL capable – well, in that it did, technically, go faster then light… Check.
“Fuck it, it’ll do!�
The blast doors opened, and Ite exited the bridge. “Were I a Captain, I would be obligated to stay here and die,� he thought aloud, “but I am a Commodore, and we live forever!�
I've only ever asked God for one thing: "Lord, make my enemies ridiculous," and he granted my request.
My immediate advice is to go buy Brewsters. It is a dictionary, and a quite fine one. This you should use to bludgeon yourself comatose each and every night, in the faint hope that some of the knowledge contained in it might be transferred. If not, it would at least leave you damaged enough that you wouldn't be coming here and violate our senses with your retarded babble.
-
Arizona Nova
- GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD!
- Posts: 3703
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:11 pm
- Prefix: The Reconstituted Kingdom
- Name: Arizona Nova
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
"Adversary is moving to evade," said one of the engineers.
Stanimir came to the console and asked, "How fast?"
"Fast for a couple kilometers of steel," he said, standing aside to let him see.
"Damn - we made this mountain to float, not to fly. At that speed he'll be out of range in no time."
"Surely we must have some other offensive option?" asked Anikar.
Stanimir pondered it for a moment. "Float... not fly... thats it!"
"What is?" asked Anikar curiously.
"The city is held aloft by gravitic thrusters," he said, bustling over to another console. "While I don't think they should be used for this purpose - at least often - they can be reconfigured into a makeshift weapon, like in..." he pointed at Anikar, snapping his fingers,
"The Fist?" she answered.
"Thats the one!" he said. "Got to set new trajectories... reverse flow... and interrupt," he said, fiddling with the settings.
"Will this put the city in danger?" Anikar asked worriedly.
"Only a little," Stanimir replied. "We can use one projector for this and increase power to the rest. Even if it burns out we can stay aloft, and if something else should go wrong we can at least float down to sea level - that way the mountain won't shatter when it slams into the ocean and we'll have time to escape. Either way, it beats having your mind flayed by rampant Tzoy."
"You make a good point," said Anikar. "Go ahead."
On the outside of the mountain the symphony of green flying forth, washing over the battered form of the escaping Nobuseri ship, continued, but on one of the projectors something was notably different - mainly the massive electrical arcs looping around it and the distinctly brighter glow of it compared to its fellows. All at once the glow disappeared, and there was a rolling thunder crack as the gravitons jetted through the air, compressing and releasing instantaneously.
Stanimir came to the console and asked, "How fast?"
"Fast for a couple kilometers of steel," he said, standing aside to let him see.
"Damn - we made this mountain to float, not to fly. At that speed he'll be out of range in no time."
"Surely we must have some other offensive option?" asked Anikar.
Stanimir pondered it for a moment. "Float... not fly... thats it!"
"What is?" asked Anikar curiously.
"The city is held aloft by gravitic thrusters," he said, bustling over to another console. "While I don't think they should be used for this purpose - at least often - they can be reconfigured into a makeshift weapon, like in..." he pointed at Anikar, snapping his fingers,
"The Fist?" she answered.
"Thats the one!" he said. "Got to set new trajectories... reverse flow... and interrupt," he said, fiddling with the settings.
"Will this put the city in danger?" Anikar asked worriedly.
"Only a little," Stanimir replied. "We can use one projector for this and increase power to the rest. Even if it burns out we can stay aloft, and if something else should go wrong we can at least float down to sea level - that way the mountain won't shatter when it slams into the ocean and we'll have time to escape. Either way, it beats having your mind flayed by rampant Tzoy."
"You make a good point," said Anikar. "Go ahead."
On the outside of the mountain the symphony of green flying forth, washing over the battered form of the escaping Nobuseri ship, continued, but on one of the projectors something was notably different - mainly the massive electrical arcs looping around it and the distinctly brighter glow of it compared to its fellows. All at once the glow disappeared, and there was a rolling thunder crack as the gravitons jetted through the air, compressing and releasing instantaneously.
[center]Wit ye well, that when no good men remain to stand against those who choose evil, what will remain to restrain them from unleashing their dark designs?[/center]
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
The bulkhead shattered, and a wild ricochet shredded through the hall, liquid fire swept across the ceiling; held by some incomprehensible trick of physics, it appeared more a sea of flame then a plasma leak. The air beneath its menacing glow took on a visible life as it was heated to temperatures beyond comprehension. The walls boiled and charred. Ite sealed the blast doors, this way was shut.
The doors began to unfetter, the piping groaned and swelled, in the corner Ite thought he could hear a rivet burst free. It was time to go. He took a left at the intersection, the most efficient route to his newly acquired strike craft lie closed to him, but it was not the only one. Ite sprinted down the corridor towards the access ladder at its end. He took hold of it with one hand, and pounded his other, already gored, fist into the console that would seal the way behind him, swung his body round, and flew down deck after deck as his wake was consumed in ruin.
He glanced down, and instinctively thrust his foot outwards to halt his decent. It hit home hard, and Ite limped onto the floor. The leg was probably sprained, if not broken, but while the injury might slow him down it was surely worth it, somewhere under him an inferno had not long ago raged. The relative darkness belied the true lethal potential that lie below, but the radiant heat upon his face had made it clear enough. The plasma had stopped flowing, and without oxygen the fire had swiftly died, but the heat remained; were one to descend further they would not burn, they would melt. Yet another setback.
Once more, however, not necessarily a fatal one. This deck would suffice for the purpose of getting him most of the way to the hangar, once in vicinity he could find a way in… assuming it didn’t get destroyed in the meantime, if it wasn’t already. Ite sprinted down the corridor, or tried to… despite his will to prevent his injury from slowing him down, his foot simply would not move as fast as he had hoped. This was annoying, forced as he now was to move on foot, he had almost ¾ of a kilometer left to cover, and could not afford to waste time.
Ite felt a sudden increase of inertia, and was launched forward roughly three – maybe four – meters. Another shield failure… or at least he hoped that’s what it was. It felt almost like the ship had hit something. Ite wondered if the evasive pattern he had initiated considered water ‘impassable,’ if not then there was a reasonable possibility that the ship had just dived under the waves at high speeds with little or no shields… probably not a good idea. In any case he grudgingly appreciated the slight bonus distance he had acquired, even as he picked himself off the floor. The metal grating had tore the skin on his forearms and it now hung loose in patches, but it wasn’t of great concern… he could always get new arms, but only if he made off this ship. He pressed onward.
***
“Shit, shit, shit!� Two minutes and several bruises latter Ite found himself staring down the main entrance to the reserve launch bay. He had seen several completely destroyed blast doors along his little ‘trek’ but fortunately this one was undamaged… immaculate even… none the less, it refused to open; and no access code, manual override, or amount of slamming ones fist into it seemed able to convince it to do otherwise… piece of shit. This meant the only way in now, was to go up one deck, and access the hangar through the hydrogen fuel pod – the absolute worst possible place to be in the middle of a battle. Still, there was no other option.
He climbed the nearest access ladder and ran as fast as he could through the pod, looking for the appropriate exit. His forehead wound was bleeding copiously and making vision difficult. Every time he attempted to wipe blood out of his left eye he only succeeded in rubbing it into the right; at this point he had more or less given up trying. He spotted his exit, and, summoning all the adrenaline he had left, rushed for it. He made it; he was in the hangar, now all that was left was to reach the reserve launch bay…
Another wave of inertia, but this time it was different… for a moment Ite couldn’t discern up from down, or if he was even alive; when he finally regained some perspective, he found himself on his back with some tremendous, if rather imprecise, pain screaming at him from his lower body. He looked down, and at that moment swore he would crucify all those motherfucking idiots who wrote scripts in which amputees on the battlefield scream about how they ‘can’t feel their legs!’ He could feel them, and they hurt!
Ite normally would have cursed up a storm, but despite himself he just couldn’t think of anything sufficiently forceful to say. Instead he just muttered venomously, and gnashed his teeth. The fuel pod had exploded, there was fire all around him, and it looked as though the whole hangar might collapse at any second, but before he could do anything he needed to slow the bleeding. He turned himself around and reached for his legs.
It was a rather odd thing, holding them in his hands like that, but what remained of the pant legs served well enough to tie off his stumps… well, one was a stump, the other, Ite thought, looked more like shredded pork. Regardless, for the moment he could return to thinking about his exodus. He crawled through the smoldering wreckage towards the means of his deliverance, all the while wondering if escape was even remotely possible at this point.
And then, there was that familiar headache:
Ite cannot leave! We are here… the fight is here… we must fight… we must fight until they die! Ite cannot leave… Ite is friend!
“Damn it, just DIE ALREADY! Leave me the fuck alone!�
Another second of pain, and just like that, as if by magic, they were gone. He wondered if they had actually obeyed him… maybe they really did consider him a friend… weird. Or maybe their tank had just exploded… who knows? It didn’t matter, he was inching closer, he could almost see into the bay…
Ite did not know exactly what he had been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this: The Kihon’s typical dual thrusters had been replaced by what appeared to be a Recycled-Inertial, Tri-Engine, God of Thrust! Two additional hard-points that Ite could see, probably more that he couldn’t, the armor had clearly undergone considerable modification, flash shields, chase reinforcements… a new paint job… Indeed the Gedan-barai was probably the most kick-ass rebuild that Ite had ever seen. Finally his luck might be turning around!
He crawled his way up the side of the craft and into the cockpit; which he more or less fell into, hitting his head on its side. Ite felt a twinge of guilt at smearing blood on this godlike fighter… on the other hand, it was kind of nice to christen the craft in such a way… made him feel more at home. He activated the controls.
Please input access code. Asked a disembodied female voice.
“Shit!� Ite had not counted on this, and it could ruin everything. “Just work, damn it!� he spouted in frustration.
Access code accepted. The voice suddenly took on a seductive quality, Welcome Chief Engineer Ryouta.
“The Engineer!� Ite thought audibly, this man was a god… to bad he was almost certainly dead… oh well, he probably won’t need the fighter then.
He powered up the systems and lifted off. Flying was somewhat tricky as he couldn’t use the pedals and this model didn’t have a spinal tap, still he could input flight commands via the navigation console almost as quickly. The launch bay door was shut, which represented something of a problem as it was of considerable durability. Fortunately it was never designed to take fire from the inside, and was quickly unhinged by Ite’s patented twin-missile surprise.
The haze cleared, and Ite could see the ocean stretched out before him… freedom. He input escape coordinates, it was necessary in this instance to play it cool, if he kept his power signature to a minimum he would appear to be just another piece of debris. Once under the oceans protective sheath he would move away slowly, only making good his escape once beyond their attention. The ocean rapidly rose up to meet him; the inertial inhibitors were running at a minimum, so Ite braced himself for impact. It came sooner then he expected.
“Oh by all the fiends in Tartarus, what the fuck is it now!� Suddenly, and without warning, Ite found himself moving back towards the ship. At first he thought that he had made some sort of mistake in programming, or that the fighter was malfunctioning somehow, or that he had activated some strange security measure, but upon gazing skyward he found that – not only he – but everything was being drawn back into his savaged vessel; debris, cloud, rain, and water. It was as though a strange vortex had appeared… or been summoned.
He powered up his sensors. Gravity readings were alarmingly high, a singularity weapon perhaps? No, if that were the case he’d be getting temporal distortion too… must be some odd Sornei device. He seemed to recall something like this from tactical briefings, but it might have been someone else, he couldn’t be sure… as he remembered it, the device was mounted on a coreship, not a rock… then again, it was a flying, fighting, fucking ridiculous rock, so why the hell not?
“Fine then!� There was no reason to play it cool now! The bastards were slowly crushing the life out of his ship, and very soon him with it. Even at maximum thrust he would only barely be able to escape the enemies crushing gravitational maw, and doing so would light him up like a stellar implosion… he might as well just hail the enemy at ask them to shoot him. To escape quickly and quietly, he would need a little boost, and as the late Konstantin had once, so long ago, pointed out: the Hosho does have a self-destruct device…
1453-1812-1942-Anihilate
He dialed in the code four times for confirmation, using the fighter’s linear EM burst, and waited for the ESC reactors to discharge their contents… the blast would be of tremendous magnitude, it could kill him, but then… it wouldn’t be very interesting if it couldn’t.
Ite smiled, he could not remember the last time he’d had so much fun. This, quite possibly, had been the best day in his entire life!
So far…
The doors began to unfetter, the piping groaned and swelled, in the corner Ite thought he could hear a rivet burst free. It was time to go. He took a left at the intersection, the most efficient route to his newly acquired strike craft lie closed to him, but it was not the only one. Ite sprinted down the corridor towards the access ladder at its end. He took hold of it with one hand, and pounded his other, already gored, fist into the console that would seal the way behind him, swung his body round, and flew down deck after deck as his wake was consumed in ruin.
He glanced down, and instinctively thrust his foot outwards to halt his decent. It hit home hard, and Ite limped onto the floor. The leg was probably sprained, if not broken, but while the injury might slow him down it was surely worth it, somewhere under him an inferno had not long ago raged. The relative darkness belied the true lethal potential that lie below, but the radiant heat upon his face had made it clear enough. The plasma had stopped flowing, and without oxygen the fire had swiftly died, but the heat remained; were one to descend further they would not burn, they would melt. Yet another setback.
Once more, however, not necessarily a fatal one. This deck would suffice for the purpose of getting him most of the way to the hangar, once in vicinity he could find a way in… assuming it didn’t get destroyed in the meantime, if it wasn’t already. Ite sprinted down the corridor, or tried to… despite his will to prevent his injury from slowing him down, his foot simply would not move as fast as he had hoped. This was annoying, forced as he now was to move on foot, he had almost ¾ of a kilometer left to cover, and could not afford to waste time.
Ite felt a sudden increase of inertia, and was launched forward roughly three – maybe four – meters. Another shield failure… or at least he hoped that’s what it was. It felt almost like the ship had hit something. Ite wondered if the evasive pattern he had initiated considered water ‘impassable,’ if not then there was a reasonable possibility that the ship had just dived under the waves at high speeds with little or no shields… probably not a good idea. In any case he grudgingly appreciated the slight bonus distance he had acquired, even as he picked himself off the floor. The metal grating had tore the skin on his forearms and it now hung loose in patches, but it wasn’t of great concern… he could always get new arms, but only if he made off this ship. He pressed onward.
***
“Shit, shit, shit!� Two minutes and several bruises latter Ite found himself staring down the main entrance to the reserve launch bay. He had seen several completely destroyed blast doors along his little ‘trek’ but fortunately this one was undamaged… immaculate even… none the less, it refused to open; and no access code, manual override, or amount of slamming ones fist into it seemed able to convince it to do otherwise… piece of shit. This meant the only way in now, was to go up one deck, and access the hangar through the hydrogen fuel pod – the absolute worst possible place to be in the middle of a battle. Still, there was no other option.
He climbed the nearest access ladder and ran as fast as he could through the pod, looking for the appropriate exit. His forehead wound was bleeding copiously and making vision difficult. Every time he attempted to wipe blood out of his left eye he only succeeded in rubbing it into the right; at this point he had more or less given up trying. He spotted his exit, and, summoning all the adrenaline he had left, rushed for it. He made it; he was in the hangar, now all that was left was to reach the reserve launch bay…
Another wave of inertia, but this time it was different… for a moment Ite couldn’t discern up from down, or if he was even alive; when he finally regained some perspective, he found himself on his back with some tremendous, if rather imprecise, pain screaming at him from his lower body. He looked down, and at that moment swore he would crucify all those motherfucking idiots who wrote scripts in which amputees on the battlefield scream about how they ‘can’t feel their legs!’ He could feel them, and they hurt!
Ite normally would have cursed up a storm, but despite himself he just couldn’t think of anything sufficiently forceful to say. Instead he just muttered venomously, and gnashed his teeth. The fuel pod had exploded, there was fire all around him, and it looked as though the whole hangar might collapse at any second, but before he could do anything he needed to slow the bleeding. He turned himself around and reached for his legs.
It was a rather odd thing, holding them in his hands like that, but what remained of the pant legs served well enough to tie off his stumps… well, one was a stump, the other, Ite thought, looked more like shredded pork. Regardless, for the moment he could return to thinking about his exodus. He crawled through the smoldering wreckage towards the means of his deliverance, all the while wondering if escape was even remotely possible at this point.
And then, there was that familiar headache:
Ite cannot leave! We are here… the fight is here… we must fight… we must fight until they die! Ite cannot leave… Ite is friend!
“Damn it, just DIE ALREADY! Leave me the fuck alone!�
Another second of pain, and just like that, as if by magic, they were gone. He wondered if they had actually obeyed him… maybe they really did consider him a friend… weird. Or maybe their tank had just exploded… who knows? It didn’t matter, he was inching closer, he could almost see into the bay…
Ite did not know exactly what he had been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this: The Kihon’s typical dual thrusters had been replaced by what appeared to be a Recycled-Inertial, Tri-Engine, God of Thrust! Two additional hard-points that Ite could see, probably more that he couldn’t, the armor had clearly undergone considerable modification, flash shields, chase reinforcements… a new paint job… Indeed the Gedan-barai was probably the most kick-ass rebuild that Ite had ever seen. Finally his luck might be turning around!
He crawled his way up the side of the craft and into the cockpit; which he more or less fell into, hitting his head on its side. Ite felt a twinge of guilt at smearing blood on this godlike fighter… on the other hand, it was kind of nice to christen the craft in such a way… made him feel more at home. He activated the controls.
Please input access code. Asked a disembodied female voice.
“Shit!� Ite had not counted on this, and it could ruin everything. “Just work, damn it!� he spouted in frustration.
Access code accepted. The voice suddenly took on a seductive quality, Welcome Chief Engineer Ryouta.
“The Engineer!� Ite thought audibly, this man was a god… to bad he was almost certainly dead… oh well, he probably won’t need the fighter then.
He powered up the systems and lifted off. Flying was somewhat tricky as he couldn’t use the pedals and this model didn’t have a spinal tap, still he could input flight commands via the navigation console almost as quickly. The launch bay door was shut, which represented something of a problem as it was of considerable durability. Fortunately it was never designed to take fire from the inside, and was quickly unhinged by Ite’s patented twin-missile surprise.
The haze cleared, and Ite could see the ocean stretched out before him… freedom. He input escape coordinates, it was necessary in this instance to play it cool, if he kept his power signature to a minimum he would appear to be just another piece of debris. Once under the oceans protective sheath he would move away slowly, only making good his escape once beyond their attention. The ocean rapidly rose up to meet him; the inertial inhibitors were running at a minimum, so Ite braced himself for impact. It came sooner then he expected.
“Oh by all the fiends in Tartarus, what the fuck is it now!� Suddenly, and without warning, Ite found himself moving back towards the ship. At first he thought that he had made some sort of mistake in programming, or that the fighter was malfunctioning somehow, or that he had activated some strange security measure, but upon gazing skyward he found that – not only he – but everything was being drawn back into his savaged vessel; debris, cloud, rain, and water. It was as though a strange vortex had appeared… or been summoned.
He powered up his sensors. Gravity readings were alarmingly high, a singularity weapon perhaps? No, if that were the case he’d be getting temporal distortion too… must be some odd Sornei device. He seemed to recall something like this from tactical briefings, but it might have been someone else, he couldn’t be sure… as he remembered it, the device was mounted on a coreship, not a rock… then again, it was a flying, fighting, fucking ridiculous rock, so why the hell not?
“Fine then!� There was no reason to play it cool now! The bastards were slowly crushing the life out of his ship, and very soon him with it. Even at maximum thrust he would only barely be able to escape the enemies crushing gravitational maw, and doing so would light him up like a stellar implosion… he might as well just hail the enemy at ask them to shoot him. To escape quickly and quietly, he would need a little boost, and as the late Konstantin had once, so long ago, pointed out: the Hosho does have a self-destruct device…
1453-1812-1942-Anihilate
He dialed in the code four times for confirmation, using the fighter’s linear EM burst, and waited for the ESC reactors to discharge their contents… the blast would be of tremendous magnitude, it could kill him, but then… it wouldn’t be very interesting if it couldn’t.
Ite smiled, he could not remember the last time he’d had so much fun. This, quite possibly, had been the best day in his entire life!
So far…
I've only ever asked God for one thing: "Lord, make my enemies ridiculous," and he granted my request.
My immediate advice is to go buy Brewsters. It is a dictionary, and a quite fine one. This you should use to bludgeon yourself comatose each and every night, in the faint hope that some of the knowledge contained in it might be transferred. If not, it would at least leave you damaged enough that you wouldn't be coming here and violate our senses with your retarded babble.
-
Arizona Nova
- GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD!
- Posts: 3703
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:11 pm
- Prefix: The Reconstituted Kingdom
- Name: Arizona Nova
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
The crew cheered as they saw the Nobuseri ship crumple in on itself as the shot found home, but the euphoria lasted but a moment. A massive explosion ripped apart what remained of the ship, and all on hand gasped as the shockwave rolled forth from its bowels.
"All shields to port!" yelled Stanimir.
The diversion was only partially complete when the shockwave hit home. Stanimir watched intensely, sweat rolling down the side of his face, as the shields rapidly dropped, the entire city shuddering under him. Finally, the explosion subsided, at less than ten percent remaining.
The crew released a collective sigh of relief. Stanimir looked out to the sea, and now only small bits of wreckage floated on the surface. What little remained of the Nobuseri battleship had plunged into the depths. He looked over at Anikar, who was also peering out, but up into the sky.
"What is it?" he asked.
Anikar did not respond immediately, but narrowed her eyes as she looked up into the sky.
"Hm? Oh, nothing. Though... Stanimir, may I talk with you in private?"
He blinked, unsure of how to react. "Er, yes."
She pulled him aside into an unoccupied and somewhat unfinished side room.
"Your... performance during the battle was admirable, Stanimir. You are indeed a clever and capable leader."
Stanimir nodded, still unsure of where she was going.
She cleared her throat. "Indeed, your leadership has been exceptional over the course of this expedition. You have not shirked before the weight of the responsibilities you have been given, and with a steady hand corrected all the problems that cropped up in your path. I see few - if any - others worry of the honor I will now bestow upon thee. Kneel."
"What?" asked Stanimir, even as he kneeled, not quite knowing why.
Anikar extended her left hand, laying it on the side of his head. "Stanimir Jonah Ryszard, by the power invested in me as a member of the Imperial Court, I adopt you into my house, and name you first of my line, and give you the royal name 'Anandil.' Upon you, I bestow my blessing."
Heat washed over Stanimir's head and then seemed to filter throughout his body. He jumped back and up, looking at Anikar, bewildered.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded.
Anikar looked at him, nonplussed. "I adopt you... into my house. You are now - family."
He shook his head. "What... what the hell are you talking about? You can't... what? Adopt me? I'm a grown man! I'm... I'm a God damn sewer engineer!"
She continued to look steadily at him. "And? You would aspire to nothing more than that, nor do you believe that no one could be uplifted so?"
"No, but - this makes no sense!" He began to pace. "I have a life and it's fine, I don't need this!"
"Yet it is given to you freely," she said.
"I can't accept this," he said. "I - I have to go." With that he turned, and left her.
Anikar sighed, then sat upon a nearby block, watching as he walked away. She smiled, a small, secret thing. He would come around; eventually.
-=Kelwynd
Lonán Kennedy sat in his study, his face taught, livid. He stared at the wall opposite his desk as if he intended to bore a hole through it with his mind. The broad-sheet lay where he had forcefully smacked it a few minutes ago, and had gone into standby mode, the “print� slowly fading off its face. His mind worked furiously as he digested the news in enraged silence. Baramua was saved – but by the “courageous� actions of Anikar and a crew of hired engineers. He raged – she’d planned this! She was the one who was orchestrating the whole thing, he, everyone was but puppets on her strings! He got up and threw down his chair, and punched the desk, immediately withdrawing his hand from the cracked finish even further goaded to rage as the pain coursed through his hand and arm. He breathed heavily as he sucked his bleeding knuckles, pacing around the office, trying to calm down. It was time for action. Everything he had done up to this point was reaction to her schemes. It was time to take off the gloves, yes. He pulled out his miniphone, bringing up a contact with hands that shook with both rage and fear. He brought the phone up as his contact received on the other end:
“Yes, sir?�
“Cartman,� said Kennedy. “We have a mutual acquaintance I wish detained. You know what to do.�
“Acknowledged.�
There was a click, and nothing. Lonán sat down, cradling his head in his hands, which still radiated pain. The order was placed and could not be recalled. Everything had gone too far, though, for it to end any other way. He got up, looking himself in a mirror. He straightened out his somewhat disheveled clothes. The press conferences would be beginning soon now, he had to look presentable.
-=Nomramis, Baramua
The informal celebration held by the crew had ended long ago, and even the hardiest drinkers had succumbed to sleep as their slice of Baramua span its course through midnight and beyond. Anikar herself had retired to a bunk, excusing herself from the party relatively early.
Thus the unfinished city slept, ignorant of those rapidly approaching in a cloaked ship.
System defenses were easily bypassed – their credentials, though ostensibly invalid, still held enough authority to make virtually any gate and lock open, not that such formalities were even needed. It wasn’t an assignment where hacking grids would be particularly prudent, though, so like a knife they slid into the belly of the Barclay system, the special materials of the ships hull dulling the re-entry glow. A quick scan of the mountain revealed the location of its crew, and the vessel set down as close as prudent, and out into the night stole a dozen or so figures which quickly disappeared into the murk. From scaffold to façade they slid, the moonlight occasionally betraying an extremity or two, but not that it mattered. The internal security systems were not online yet.
Coming to the headquarters, it was a quick hack to get in. This place was built expecting a battle fleet to attack it, not a team of technically “friendly� agents to infiltrate it.
The team crept through the hallways, bypassing snoring and deeply unconscious engineers and crewmen. Like poison they spread, silent. They did not stop to kill, though – this time, too messy and too risky. The target was quickly found.
The two agents crept into the room, their black full body suits betraying no creaks or clanks as they neared the bed. They presented an altogether ghoulish appearance in their masks, which did little to marry function with form and just went with function; tubes and drums stuck out in a seemingly random mess.
“This it?� the first of them transmitted to his accomplice.
“Yes. Give me the trank.�
The first handed him a syringe, which he immediately stuck into Anikar’s arm. Her breathing quickly became even more shallow and relaxed.
“There. We’ll be lucky if she comes back out, really. Help me, and lets go.�
The two hoisted up the limp, now helpless form up, and without a hitch effortlessly carried her out. Behind slipped the rest of the agents, leaving now as quickly as they came. Into the ship they carried her, and it too, soon left Baramua behind, and once free of its gravity well disappeared in a twinkling. Anikar was gone.
-=Helcaraxë, the Felsen Belt
Anikar’s head hurt. She distinctly did not know why this should be the case – she had not had much, if anything, to drink, and it wasn’t even as if she couldn’t easily stave off the effects of alcohol easily anyway – but this combined with the fuzziness of her vision was alarming. She couldn’t see anything but a blinding white light, that poisonous florescent kind that seems to drill its sickly purity into the deepest recesses of the mind. As her sight came back she started – she was not at Nomramis, or at least any part she recognized. Over her busily hovered men and women in bright white coats, such as a doctor or – or a scientist – might wear.
“She’s coming out of it,� intoned one of them. “A bit quick. Apply more trank.�
Within the heavily drugged recesses of her mind, a rage flared, more powerful and focused than anything Kennedy may have experienced that day. As quickly as a sun disperses the morning fogs on terra firma did the last of the drugs wear off.
“Odd reading here,� mumbled one of the scientists.
The first stated loudly, “I said, more trank! Now people!�
One of them rushed over with a filled syringe, nervously fumbling as he took hold of Anikar’s arm. She fixed him with her stare, and he paused a moment, unable to break it. Suddenly a voice, wrathful and terrible, sounded within their own minds.
You know not what you do.
Shaking his head, the chief scientist there barked at the orderly: “What are you waiting for! Do it now!�
A uniformed, armored man burst into the room, and announced, “Sir! Containment and security systems across the station are going haywire – we’re getting system failures all across the board!�
The chief’s face drained of all color. “Jesus Christ – lock down Ward 2, immediately! Go, now, before it’s too late!�
The man rushed back out, and the scientists turned back to the table, to see Anikar jerk against the metal restraining straps – and break them. One, then two arms, then the legs, and she was free. The scientists stood in stunned silence, too terrified to move or raise an alarm. Behind the back wall and its one-way mirror, in the security center, personell rushed from computer bank to computer bank as cascading operating system failures rippled throughout the station’s systems, and various failsafes and physical isolating locks improbably broke.
The air around Anikar rapidly grew perceptibly hotter, and the intensity of her eyes was quickly manifesting as a glow, which became brighter and brighter. All of the sudden, there was a flash of light, somehow drowning out the fluorescence in its brilliance. The scientists were sent reeling, covering their eyes in a futile effort to block out the light. It faded, and Anikar was now a being transformed. She loomed great and terrible above them, now clad in what appeared an armor of scales which glowed as molten metal, from her neck to her heels. Tiny jets of flame licked forth from underneath the soles of her mailed boots. Overlaying it were plates and a cuirass of metal of some sort, which reflected the lights fiercely, more perfectly then mirrors. From her back had sprouted two wings, but not soft or feathery affairs – the feathers here were jagged and iridescent, somewhere between chrome and gem, catching, magnifying, and reflecting the light, and they spread to the ceiling and far sides of the room. Her eyes now glowed only as fiercely as the rest of her body now, its full majesty and terror unleashed. A crown or helm, high, thin and cruel, bedecked her brow, and she looked down now on the huddled creatures as they were – insignificant, traitorous, insects.
As far as thou art concerned, the covenant is broken, and your punishment is in my hands. The sentence of death is fitting for such as thee.
She opened her mouth, but what words came forth were unknown – the camera and security systems that would have recorded her words failed at that moment – and no sooner had the words been said then everyone in the room slumped to the floor, dead. For a moment she surveyed the carnage with disgust, then held forth her hand. With a flash like lightning, a two-double-bladed sword materialized in it, quickly assuming a scale more appropriate to her stature and soon itself radiating light. She scanned the rest of the facility, and saw in those instants the hundreds of people scrambling now to lock down the place and execute safeguards, half of which no longer worked and half of what remained doomed to fail, and seeing what was held within she deemed it wise to leave them to their work. The sin was not their own, they merely served those who orchestrated it. Even they were not directly against her, she realized as she delved by will into the computer systems, but had been payed by another. Ah, Kennedy. That fool had just made his last mistake. She summoned into her open hand the various storage drives with the information she needed, then looked in the direction of Kelwynd, and though it was even lightyears away it might as well have been to her empowered senses but a field’s length in the distance. She disappeared in a burst of flame, which licked but momentarily in the air and then itself vanished.
"All shields to port!" yelled Stanimir.
The diversion was only partially complete when the shockwave hit home. Stanimir watched intensely, sweat rolling down the side of his face, as the shields rapidly dropped, the entire city shuddering under him. Finally, the explosion subsided, at less than ten percent remaining.
The crew released a collective sigh of relief. Stanimir looked out to the sea, and now only small bits of wreckage floated on the surface. What little remained of the Nobuseri battleship had plunged into the depths. He looked over at Anikar, who was also peering out, but up into the sky.
"What is it?" he asked.
Anikar did not respond immediately, but narrowed her eyes as she looked up into the sky.
"Hm? Oh, nothing. Though... Stanimir, may I talk with you in private?"
He blinked, unsure of how to react. "Er, yes."
She pulled him aside into an unoccupied and somewhat unfinished side room.
"Your... performance during the battle was admirable, Stanimir. You are indeed a clever and capable leader."
Stanimir nodded, still unsure of where she was going.
She cleared her throat. "Indeed, your leadership has been exceptional over the course of this expedition. You have not shirked before the weight of the responsibilities you have been given, and with a steady hand corrected all the problems that cropped up in your path. I see few - if any - others worry of the honor I will now bestow upon thee. Kneel."
"What?" asked Stanimir, even as he kneeled, not quite knowing why.
Anikar extended her left hand, laying it on the side of his head. "Stanimir Jonah Ryszard, by the power invested in me as a member of the Imperial Court, I adopt you into my house, and name you first of my line, and give you the royal name 'Anandil.' Upon you, I bestow my blessing."
Heat washed over Stanimir's head and then seemed to filter throughout his body. He jumped back and up, looking at Anikar, bewildered.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded.
Anikar looked at him, nonplussed. "I adopt you... into my house. You are now - family."
He shook his head. "What... what the hell are you talking about? You can't... what? Adopt me? I'm a grown man! I'm... I'm a God damn sewer engineer!"
She continued to look steadily at him. "And? You would aspire to nothing more than that, nor do you believe that no one could be uplifted so?"
"No, but - this makes no sense!" He began to pace. "I have a life and it's fine, I don't need this!"
"Yet it is given to you freely," she said.
"I can't accept this," he said. "I - I have to go." With that he turned, and left her.
Anikar sighed, then sat upon a nearby block, watching as he walked away. She smiled, a small, secret thing. He would come around; eventually.
-=Kelwynd
Lonán Kennedy sat in his study, his face taught, livid. He stared at the wall opposite his desk as if he intended to bore a hole through it with his mind. The broad-sheet lay where he had forcefully smacked it a few minutes ago, and had gone into standby mode, the “print� slowly fading off its face. His mind worked furiously as he digested the news in enraged silence. Baramua was saved – but by the “courageous� actions of Anikar and a crew of hired engineers. He raged – she’d planned this! She was the one who was orchestrating the whole thing, he, everyone was but puppets on her strings! He got up and threw down his chair, and punched the desk, immediately withdrawing his hand from the cracked finish even further goaded to rage as the pain coursed through his hand and arm. He breathed heavily as he sucked his bleeding knuckles, pacing around the office, trying to calm down. It was time for action. Everything he had done up to this point was reaction to her schemes. It was time to take off the gloves, yes. He pulled out his miniphone, bringing up a contact with hands that shook with both rage and fear. He brought the phone up as his contact received on the other end:
“Yes, sir?�
“Cartman,� said Kennedy. “We have a mutual acquaintance I wish detained. You know what to do.�
“Acknowledged.�
There was a click, and nothing. Lonán sat down, cradling his head in his hands, which still radiated pain. The order was placed and could not be recalled. Everything had gone too far, though, for it to end any other way. He got up, looking himself in a mirror. He straightened out his somewhat disheveled clothes. The press conferences would be beginning soon now, he had to look presentable.
-=Nomramis, Baramua
The informal celebration held by the crew had ended long ago, and even the hardiest drinkers had succumbed to sleep as their slice of Baramua span its course through midnight and beyond. Anikar herself had retired to a bunk, excusing herself from the party relatively early.
Thus the unfinished city slept, ignorant of those rapidly approaching in a cloaked ship.
System defenses were easily bypassed – their credentials, though ostensibly invalid, still held enough authority to make virtually any gate and lock open, not that such formalities were even needed. It wasn’t an assignment where hacking grids would be particularly prudent, though, so like a knife they slid into the belly of the Barclay system, the special materials of the ships hull dulling the re-entry glow. A quick scan of the mountain revealed the location of its crew, and the vessel set down as close as prudent, and out into the night stole a dozen or so figures which quickly disappeared into the murk. From scaffold to façade they slid, the moonlight occasionally betraying an extremity or two, but not that it mattered. The internal security systems were not online yet.
Coming to the headquarters, it was a quick hack to get in. This place was built expecting a battle fleet to attack it, not a team of technically “friendly� agents to infiltrate it.
The team crept through the hallways, bypassing snoring and deeply unconscious engineers and crewmen. Like poison they spread, silent. They did not stop to kill, though – this time, too messy and too risky. The target was quickly found.
The two agents crept into the room, their black full body suits betraying no creaks or clanks as they neared the bed. They presented an altogether ghoulish appearance in their masks, which did little to marry function with form and just went with function; tubes and drums stuck out in a seemingly random mess.
“This it?� the first of them transmitted to his accomplice.
“Yes. Give me the trank.�
The first handed him a syringe, which he immediately stuck into Anikar’s arm. Her breathing quickly became even more shallow and relaxed.
“There. We’ll be lucky if she comes back out, really. Help me, and lets go.�
The two hoisted up the limp, now helpless form up, and without a hitch effortlessly carried her out. Behind slipped the rest of the agents, leaving now as quickly as they came. Into the ship they carried her, and it too, soon left Baramua behind, and once free of its gravity well disappeared in a twinkling. Anikar was gone.
-=Helcaraxë, the Felsen Belt
Anikar’s head hurt. She distinctly did not know why this should be the case – she had not had much, if anything, to drink, and it wasn’t even as if she couldn’t easily stave off the effects of alcohol easily anyway – but this combined with the fuzziness of her vision was alarming. She couldn’t see anything but a blinding white light, that poisonous florescent kind that seems to drill its sickly purity into the deepest recesses of the mind. As her sight came back she started – she was not at Nomramis, or at least any part she recognized. Over her busily hovered men and women in bright white coats, such as a doctor or – or a scientist – might wear.
“She’s coming out of it,� intoned one of them. “A bit quick. Apply more trank.�
Within the heavily drugged recesses of her mind, a rage flared, more powerful and focused than anything Kennedy may have experienced that day. As quickly as a sun disperses the morning fogs on terra firma did the last of the drugs wear off.
“Odd reading here,� mumbled one of the scientists.
The first stated loudly, “I said, more trank! Now people!�
One of them rushed over with a filled syringe, nervously fumbling as he took hold of Anikar’s arm. She fixed him with her stare, and he paused a moment, unable to break it. Suddenly a voice, wrathful and terrible, sounded within their own minds.
You know not what you do.
Shaking his head, the chief scientist there barked at the orderly: “What are you waiting for! Do it now!�
A uniformed, armored man burst into the room, and announced, “Sir! Containment and security systems across the station are going haywire – we’re getting system failures all across the board!�
The chief’s face drained of all color. “Jesus Christ – lock down Ward 2, immediately! Go, now, before it’s too late!�
The man rushed back out, and the scientists turned back to the table, to see Anikar jerk against the metal restraining straps – and break them. One, then two arms, then the legs, and she was free. The scientists stood in stunned silence, too terrified to move or raise an alarm. Behind the back wall and its one-way mirror, in the security center, personell rushed from computer bank to computer bank as cascading operating system failures rippled throughout the station’s systems, and various failsafes and physical isolating locks improbably broke.
The air around Anikar rapidly grew perceptibly hotter, and the intensity of her eyes was quickly manifesting as a glow, which became brighter and brighter. All of the sudden, there was a flash of light, somehow drowning out the fluorescence in its brilliance. The scientists were sent reeling, covering their eyes in a futile effort to block out the light. It faded, and Anikar was now a being transformed. She loomed great and terrible above them, now clad in what appeared an armor of scales which glowed as molten metal, from her neck to her heels. Tiny jets of flame licked forth from underneath the soles of her mailed boots. Overlaying it were plates and a cuirass of metal of some sort, which reflected the lights fiercely, more perfectly then mirrors. From her back had sprouted two wings, but not soft or feathery affairs – the feathers here were jagged and iridescent, somewhere between chrome and gem, catching, magnifying, and reflecting the light, and they spread to the ceiling and far sides of the room. Her eyes now glowed only as fiercely as the rest of her body now, its full majesty and terror unleashed. A crown or helm, high, thin and cruel, bedecked her brow, and she looked down now on the huddled creatures as they were – insignificant, traitorous, insects.
As far as thou art concerned, the covenant is broken, and your punishment is in my hands. The sentence of death is fitting for such as thee.
She opened her mouth, but what words came forth were unknown – the camera and security systems that would have recorded her words failed at that moment – and no sooner had the words been said then everyone in the room slumped to the floor, dead. For a moment she surveyed the carnage with disgust, then held forth her hand. With a flash like lightning, a two-double-bladed sword materialized in it, quickly assuming a scale more appropriate to her stature and soon itself radiating light. She scanned the rest of the facility, and saw in those instants the hundreds of people scrambling now to lock down the place and execute safeguards, half of which no longer worked and half of what remained doomed to fail, and seeing what was held within she deemed it wise to leave them to their work. The sin was not their own, they merely served those who orchestrated it. Even they were not directly against her, she realized as she delved by will into the computer systems, but had been payed by another. Ah, Kennedy. That fool had just made his last mistake. She summoned into her open hand the various storage drives with the information she needed, then looked in the direction of Kelwynd, and though it was even lightyears away it might as well have been to her empowered senses but a field’s length in the distance. She disappeared in a burst of flame, which licked but momentarily in the air and then itself vanished.
[center]Wit ye well, that when no good men remain to stand against those who choose evil, what will remain to restrain them from unleashing their dark designs?[/center]
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
-
Arenumberg
- Posts: 1985
- Joined: Wed May 19, 2004 11:01 pm
- Prefix: The Sophiacracy
- Name: Arenumberg
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
-=The Black Ring, Raayven
The Praetor was secure within his fortress. Or so he thought. As he made his rounds within the station, he came into its great epicenter, the security and control room which was the nexus from which he exerted his will. As he entered, he stopped, for there was someone in it. Someone tall, wing-ed, and glowing. He peered for a moment, whatever expression on his face masked by his helm, and then spoke.
"So... Anikar. You've come to observe the terms then?"
"Does it honestly look like I'm here for that?" Anikar sighed. "Your continued lack of respect - and common sense - is disturbing. I'm not here to banter, though. It's time, Praetor. Certain events have moved the time-table up to right now. You need not leave here; I will arrive in Kelwynd before you could ready a ship to embark."
He said icily, "I fear you may be mistaking my apparent shortcomings for your own. You are, surely aware that if you do not listen to, and agree to my terms - you will not be leaving for quite some time, My Lady."
"I know, Praetor. Rest assured that I will keep my word. I am on the move, however, and - in my current state - any attempt to, for lack of a better word, install things would meet with failure, merely as a consequence of my form - not because of any conscious effort."
"Quite. It is merely my duty to remind you of our... contract. Although I do not doubt your word, any duplicity will result in a downfall far quicker than any you have experienced before - and on that you have my word. Nonetheless, Everything is in place, you may begin at your own discrection."
"Thank you," she said. "I will go presently." With a sounding crack and a lashing tongue of flame, she vanished.
The Praetor was secure within his fortress. Or so he thought. As he made his rounds within the station, he came into its great epicenter, the security and control room which was the nexus from which he exerted his will. As he entered, he stopped, for there was someone in it. Someone tall, wing-ed, and glowing. He peered for a moment, whatever expression on his face masked by his helm, and then spoke.
"So... Anikar. You've come to observe the terms then?"
"Does it honestly look like I'm here for that?" Anikar sighed. "Your continued lack of respect - and common sense - is disturbing. I'm not here to banter, though. It's time, Praetor. Certain events have moved the time-table up to right now. You need not leave here; I will arrive in Kelwynd before you could ready a ship to embark."
He said icily, "I fear you may be mistaking my apparent shortcomings for your own. You are, surely aware that if you do not listen to, and agree to my terms - you will not be leaving for quite some time, My Lady."
"I know, Praetor. Rest assured that I will keep my word. I am on the move, however, and - in my current state - any attempt to, for lack of a better word, install things would meet with failure, merely as a consequence of my form - not because of any conscious effort."
"Quite. It is merely my duty to remind you of our... contract. Although I do not doubt your word, any duplicity will result in a downfall far quicker than any you have experienced before - and on that you have my word. Nonetheless, Everything is in place, you may begin at your own discrection."
"Thank you," she said. "I will go presently." With a sounding crack and a lashing tongue of flame, she vanished.
Last edited by Anonymous on Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Arizona Nova
- GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD!
- Posts: 3703
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:11 pm
- Prefix: The Reconstituted Kingdom
- Name: Arizona Nova
Re: Ichthyomachy: Ilë Sornë vs Nobuseri
The sun seemed to almost fiercely glower at Kelwynd that day. High summer had come to the verdant capital, which by accident or some trick of the elves managed to stay at a level of humidity that was comfortable. The sky had no clouds, and the sun beat fully down on the pavement, and on the Váer-Caiër who marched in full regalia toward the halls of the Assembly, led by Anikar, who shimmered in the sunlight. Her radiance was not lost in it, but almost seemed to strive against it and stand out. Passerby scattered as they came on, terrified to flight by the ill-omened appearance of the Váer-Caiër and the doubly terrifying aspect of Anikar, crowds parting like the sea. Up the steps she came, and guards came from their posts near the entrance.
“L-lady Anikar! Armed e-entrance to the H-h-hall is pro-prohibited!� the leader stammered.
Anikar looked down at them, and her eyes narrowed. She sighed and waved her free hand, and immediately the guards were knocked unconscious. The Váer-Caiër looked on impassively, seemingly unimpressed with the spectacle. She gave a wary look back at them and proceeded up the steps. Their lack of deference was disturbing.
The outer doors burst open and without further ado she repeated her first trick on the security guards on duty there, walking unopposed toward the chamber. Finally she came to its doors, and stopped, listening to what talking raged within. Over a tumult rang a familiar, desperate voice – Kennedy.
“…ar must be stopped! Her detainment is necessary to the continued security – and existence! – of this Republic!�
With that, she threw open the doors and stepped in. Immediately the tumult stopped as the members of the Assembly gasped as one. Kennedy, on the floor with a detachment of Váer-Caiër himself, looked at Anikar in shock but then regained some measure of uneasy composure when he saw the Váer-Caiër marching behind her.
“Well… here she is,� he said gloatingly. “Though she breaks jail, it appears she is nonetheless detained by our own Váer-Caiër. Excellent, my friends – you have done the Republic a service which will not be forgotten.�
Anikar glanced back at the Váer-Caiër strike leader behind her and nodded. He went on guard, unsheathing his sword, and the rest of his group followed suit. Those Váer-Caiër behind Kennedy did so as well, turning as if to detain him. All the color immediately drained out of his face, but the manic hate did not.
“So… that’s how it is, is it? Pulling another coup? Well save your speeches, Anikar – I nor anyone else here will step aside, blood will be drawn before we abdicate to you.�
Anikar smiled at the jab. “Fool. I’m not killing you, I’m placing you under arrest.�
The look on Kennedy’s face betrayed the mindset of one teetering on the edge of sanity. “Wha-what? You can’t be serious!�
“As a member of the Imperial House, I am placing you, Lonán Kennedy, under arrest for the illegal imprisonment and attempted torture of a citizen of this Republic in good faith, in violation of the Sentient Civil Rights Act,� she said with finality.
“You… you can’t! Impossible! You are the plotter, the conspirator, you would rob us of our freedom! You have no proof!� Kennedy spluttered, his eyes roving about the Assembly, looking for support.
“If I have made plots outside of your paranoid delusions, Kennedy, then I would hardly be alone in it. You have been making plots as well, plots,� she said, pulling out the storage drives, “that I have more than enough evidence to prove in a court of law.�
Kennedy lunged at the Váer-Caiër standing behind him, prompting them to attack.
“No!� yelled Anikar.
He stopped as Kennedy cowered beneath the blow, crawling as he tried to escape.
“Restrain him,� she said. “I would have him dealt with without violence, even if that is what he tried to visit upon me.�
As the Váer-Caiër turned their attention to restraining the half-crazed delegate, Anikar turned toward the members of the Assembly seated up and before her.
“This,� she began, pointing at Kennedy, “Is the face of hatred and fear. You wonder where such nations as Central Facehuggeria come from, what Hell-mouth must vomit these things forth into the universe, but they do not appear unbidden. They begin with ignorance and fear.�
She paused for a moment, looking back down. The Váer-Caiër, having finished binding Kennedy, took him out of the chamber. Anikar continued,
“Especially now, it is readily apparent that I am not human. This is true. Unbeknownst to even myself, until the Wrath and Fate’s attack upon us, I lived in ignorance of what I was, by means that it would take years to recount and explain. Julius triggered my memories, and what I am – well, let us simply say that only the Church could hope to have half an inkling. Suffice to say, I am powerful.�
She looked back up at the members of the Assembly, looking them in the eye in no particular order, as she continued,
“For this reason alone, Kennedy saw fit to pay – we shall call them, for the moment, mercenaries – a team to come to Nomramis on Baramua, the very day I and my team of engineers saved said planet from annihilation at the hands of the Nobuseri renegades, and had me incapacitated and kidnapped, then imprisoned. Had I not recovered from their drugging more quickly than anticipated, they would also have begun experimentation upon me.�
Her eyes glowed intensely with rage as she went on. “Because of his fear, this man – this imbecile – would pervert us into the very thing we have been fighting with for the past few months. He would make us as Nobuseri, finding, detaining, and experimenting on beings just because they have power, power they cannot understand. Even if their motivations were different – the Nobuseri, out of blunt lust for power and ambition, and Kennedy, out of a fear of my intentions, the end result will in the long run be the same. This cannot now or ever be tolerated.�
She calmed, as relatively calm something that looked like her could look, and said,
“Would we betray our highest ideals because of fear?�
She let the question hang for a moment. Silence reigned in the Assembly, as its members considered her words; some moved to rally to her, others still betraying uncertainty, others still filled with distrust.
“Answer how you will. However, I am now forced to action.�
A collective shudder reverberated through the chamber, and the Váer-Caiër tensed and gripped their weapons tightly.
“When this Republic formed, and when I returned, there was then much fear too, fear that I would undo your work, and shatter the nations. I, in the interest of the greater good, stood aside and did not press my claim for the throne, which I legitimately had, but simply requested to be included in the ‘Imperial House,’ along with Anithraldur, a man who had more reason than any of you here to despise me but was my friend nonetheless. Today, however, facts are made manifest. Democracy is no greater or lesser an evil in governance then any other. Atrocities can – and in time, will – occur as surely as in any other regime, all simply depending on the temperance of those within that government.�
Her eyes narrowed once more as she addressed the Assembly with finality.
“This day I now assert my claim to the throne. I leave you now twenty-four hours to make your decision – during which time I will be available for questioning.�
[center]***[/center]
Arch-Chancellor Daedalus Marcus numbly walked to the entrance of the drawing room, off of the Assembly's hall. Anikar's demand had swept across the Republic, and shaken it to its foundations. She was making herself available for questions, and that was what he was here for. His two bodyguards flanked him, but he knew they offered little protection to him.
The members of the Assembly deferentially parted before him, giving him the first right to inquire of the resurgent noble. Any other day he would have looked upon them as a nuisance, but now he couldn't help but share their feelings of uncertainty and fear. The door opened, and he layed eyes on Anikar, who sat now complacently, the terrible form dispelled.
"Arch-Chancellor!" she said, as one delighted at seeing an old friend. "I'd hoped you'd come."
He nodded, looking warily about. "Yes. You've given us all quite a scare."
"I do hope so," she said, with a careless air. "The bureacracy needs some shaking up."
He stood still, affronted, and ruffled his moustache. "Let me speak frankly," he said hesitantly. "You can't seriously be pursuing this... I mean, it's madness..."
"Is it, Arch-Chancellor?" she asked matter-of-factly, fixing him intently with her stare. "I mean this. I will have the crown and the authority back. Until now I have simply forestalled doing this, but these events demand action."
"How can you hold it all together?" he asked desperately. "The Anikari territories, maybe... but you have no right by the elves."
She cocked an eyebrow, and turned to the window. "I've considered this. Rest assurred I have the support of our elven counterparts."
"Do you, Anikar, really?" asked the Arch-Chancellor, no longer rebuffed. "Can you trust them to hold to their word?"
Anikar remained silent for a moment, then said, "Apparently, neither can you, if the absence of the Chancellor from this liasion means anything."
Now the Arch-Chancellor said nothing. Anikar continued, "I will not allow this nation to splinter along petty biological lines. You stupid creatures share most of your genetic code with frogs. Yet, if you must know, I have made arrangements. The elves will hold to them."
"For all our sakes - my Lady - I hope you are right."
She turned back to him, with a smile. "As do I, Arch-Chancellor. Rest-assurred I will maintain the structure of the government. I intend to foster evolution, not revolution, here."
He sighed. "It is as good as any. Thank you, Anikar. I am somewhat reassured."
She nodded. "Good. Good day, Arch-Chancellor - I believe more of this legion of bureacrats has something they wish to jabber on about."
He nodded, with a sigh, and left.
“L-lady Anikar! Armed e-entrance to the H-h-hall is pro-prohibited!� the leader stammered.
Anikar looked down at them, and her eyes narrowed. She sighed and waved her free hand, and immediately the guards were knocked unconscious. The Váer-Caiër looked on impassively, seemingly unimpressed with the spectacle. She gave a wary look back at them and proceeded up the steps. Their lack of deference was disturbing.
The outer doors burst open and without further ado she repeated her first trick on the security guards on duty there, walking unopposed toward the chamber. Finally she came to its doors, and stopped, listening to what talking raged within. Over a tumult rang a familiar, desperate voice – Kennedy.
“…ar must be stopped! Her detainment is necessary to the continued security – and existence! – of this Republic!�
With that, she threw open the doors and stepped in. Immediately the tumult stopped as the members of the Assembly gasped as one. Kennedy, on the floor with a detachment of Váer-Caiër himself, looked at Anikar in shock but then regained some measure of uneasy composure when he saw the Váer-Caiër marching behind her.
“Well… here she is,� he said gloatingly. “Though she breaks jail, it appears she is nonetheless detained by our own Váer-Caiër. Excellent, my friends – you have done the Republic a service which will not be forgotten.�
Anikar glanced back at the Váer-Caiër strike leader behind her and nodded. He went on guard, unsheathing his sword, and the rest of his group followed suit. Those Váer-Caiër behind Kennedy did so as well, turning as if to detain him. All the color immediately drained out of his face, but the manic hate did not.
“So… that’s how it is, is it? Pulling another coup? Well save your speeches, Anikar – I nor anyone else here will step aside, blood will be drawn before we abdicate to you.�
Anikar smiled at the jab. “Fool. I’m not killing you, I’m placing you under arrest.�
The look on Kennedy’s face betrayed the mindset of one teetering on the edge of sanity. “Wha-what? You can’t be serious!�
“As a member of the Imperial House, I am placing you, Lonán Kennedy, under arrest for the illegal imprisonment and attempted torture of a citizen of this Republic in good faith, in violation of the Sentient Civil Rights Act,� she said with finality.
“You… you can’t! Impossible! You are the plotter, the conspirator, you would rob us of our freedom! You have no proof!� Kennedy spluttered, his eyes roving about the Assembly, looking for support.
“If I have made plots outside of your paranoid delusions, Kennedy, then I would hardly be alone in it. You have been making plots as well, plots,� she said, pulling out the storage drives, “that I have more than enough evidence to prove in a court of law.�
Kennedy lunged at the Váer-Caiër standing behind him, prompting them to attack.
“No!� yelled Anikar.
He stopped as Kennedy cowered beneath the blow, crawling as he tried to escape.
“Restrain him,� she said. “I would have him dealt with without violence, even if that is what he tried to visit upon me.�
As the Váer-Caiër turned their attention to restraining the half-crazed delegate, Anikar turned toward the members of the Assembly seated up and before her.
“This,� she began, pointing at Kennedy, “Is the face of hatred and fear. You wonder where such nations as Central Facehuggeria come from, what Hell-mouth must vomit these things forth into the universe, but they do not appear unbidden. They begin with ignorance and fear.�
She paused for a moment, looking back down. The Váer-Caiër, having finished binding Kennedy, took him out of the chamber. Anikar continued,
“Especially now, it is readily apparent that I am not human. This is true. Unbeknownst to even myself, until the Wrath and Fate’s attack upon us, I lived in ignorance of what I was, by means that it would take years to recount and explain. Julius triggered my memories, and what I am – well, let us simply say that only the Church could hope to have half an inkling. Suffice to say, I am powerful.�
She looked back up at the members of the Assembly, looking them in the eye in no particular order, as she continued,
“For this reason alone, Kennedy saw fit to pay – we shall call them, for the moment, mercenaries – a team to come to Nomramis on Baramua, the very day I and my team of engineers saved said planet from annihilation at the hands of the Nobuseri renegades, and had me incapacitated and kidnapped, then imprisoned. Had I not recovered from their drugging more quickly than anticipated, they would also have begun experimentation upon me.�
Her eyes glowed intensely with rage as she went on. “Because of his fear, this man – this imbecile – would pervert us into the very thing we have been fighting with for the past few months. He would make us as Nobuseri, finding, detaining, and experimenting on beings just because they have power, power they cannot understand. Even if their motivations were different – the Nobuseri, out of blunt lust for power and ambition, and Kennedy, out of a fear of my intentions, the end result will in the long run be the same. This cannot now or ever be tolerated.�
She calmed, as relatively calm something that looked like her could look, and said,
“Would we betray our highest ideals because of fear?�
She let the question hang for a moment. Silence reigned in the Assembly, as its members considered her words; some moved to rally to her, others still betraying uncertainty, others still filled with distrust.
“Answer how you will. However, I am now forced to action.�
A collective shudder reverberated through the chamber, and the Váer-Caiër tensed and gripped their weapons tightly.
“When this Republic formed, and when I returned, there was then much fear too, fear that I would undo your work, and shatter the nations. I, in the interest of the greater good, stood aside and did not press my claim for the throne, which I legitimately had, but simply requested to be included in the ‘Imperial House,’ along with Anithraldur, a man who had more reason than any of you here to despise me but was my friend nonetheless. Today, however, facts are made manifest. Democracy is no greater or lesser an evil in governance then any other. Atrocities can – and in time, will – occur as surely as in any other regime, all simply depending on the temperance of those within that government.�
Her eyes narrowed once more as she addressed the Assembly with finality.
“This day I now assert my claim to the throne. I leave you now twenty-four hours to make your decision – during which time I will be available for questioning.�
[center]***[/center]
Arch-Chancellor Daedalus Marcus numbly walked to the entrance of the drawing room, off of the Assembly's hall. Anikar's demand had swept across the Republic, and shaken it to its foundations. She was making herself available for questions, and that was what he was here for. His two bodyguards flanked him, but he knew they offered little protection to him.
The members of the Assembly deferentially parted before him, giving him the first right to inquire of the resurgent noble. Any other day he would have looked upon them as a nuisance, but now he couldn't help but share their feelings of uncertainty and fear. The door opened, and he layed eyes on Anikar, who sat now complacently, the terrible form dispelled.
"Arch-Chancellor!" she said, as one delighted at seeing an old friend. "I'd hoped you'd come."
He nodded, looking warily about. "Yes. You've given us all quite a scare."
"I do hope so," she said, with a careless air. "The bureacracy needs some shaking up."
He stood still, affronted, and ruffled his moustache. "Let me speak frankly," he said hesitantly. "You can't seriously be pursuing this... I mean, it's madness..."
"Is it, Arch-Chancellor?" she asked matter-of-factly, fixing him intently with her stare. "I mean this. I will have the crown and the authority back. Until now I have simply forestalled doing this, but these events demand action."
"How can you hold it all together?" he asked desperately. "The Anikari territories, maybe... but you have no right by the elves."
She cocked an eyebrow, and turned to the window. "I've considered this. Rest assurred I have the support of our elven counterparts."
"Do you, Anikar, really?" asked the Arch-Chancellor, no longer rebuffed. "Can you trust them to hold to their word?"
Anikar remained silent for a moment, then said, "Apparently, neither can you, if the absence of the Chancellor from this liasion means anything."
Now the Arch-Chancellor said nothing. Anikar continued, "I will not allow this nation to splinter along petty biological lines. You stupid creatures share most of your genetic code with frogs. Yet, if you must know, I have made arrangements. The elves will hold to them."
"For all our sakes - my Lady - I hope you are right."
She turned back to him, with a smile. "As do I, Arch-Chancellor. Rest-assurred I will maintain the structure of the government. I intend to foster evolution, not revolution, here."
He sighed. "It is as good as any. Thank you, Anikar. I am somewhat reassured."
She nodded. "Good. Good day, Arch-Chancellor - I believe more of this legion of bureacrats has something they wish to jabber on about."
He nodded, with a sigh, and left.
[center]Wit ye well, that when no good men remain to stand against those who choose evil, what will remain to restrain them from unleashing their dark designs?[/center]
~Anikar
{Back Burner}
~Anikar
{Back Burner}