This is where I am going to put my content that is not getting its own thread quite yet or otherwise. Mostly commissioned work or snippets
Hey Ma! Whats That?! - Misc Commissions and Snippets Storage
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Valkyria Chronicles X Kantai Collection (Kancolle) Centurion Oneshot
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN2: It is a kancolle xover oneshot with Centurion who starred in VC4 popping up in Kancolle Earth after her retirement as a museum ship. Centurion being a battlecruiser sized amphibious snowmobile whose purpose was to be a suicide bomb with a bang of a small nuke. There were three options I had for how she would have shown up in KC depending on refit era. The other option was Orcinus Magnus which is an insane submarine battleship that was the opponent of Centurion in VC4.
Centurion considered her and it was definitely her current place. That was laying down on the cold dirt of some island, the waves lapping just a few feet away. It was strange, strange in a way that was not supposed to be possible. She was supposed to just be a thing, a complicated but non gendered machine. Once meant for war but not having served such for decades. She had not fired a shot in anger or had embarked soldiers for a military mission since the end of EW2 all the way to her retirement.
Looking at herself in the reflection of the water she found herself dressed in a large greatcoat, standard issue wear for the Imperial Navy during EW2. Underneath was a set of the Imperial Coast Guard dress uniform, the winter variant meant for her service in the Arctic Fleet and not as dated as the coat. Over it a number of mechanical parts vaguely reminiscent of the combat augmetics derived from the Imperial Artificial Valkyrur project. At least what she remembered at the time just before her internment as a museum ship. These were not the bulky exoskeletons she recalled a few of her cargo crew having. Looking things over it took a moment for her mind to ping to something. The colors looked fine, but the cut of everything, as if someone had decided to make everything a bit more risque. If she had seen her image as a piece of pin up art she would not have been surprised. It took a moment for her to stop running her hands all over herself. Centurion's first blush came from getting frisky with herself. She was not used to having some sort of, fleshy existence. A sort of ghost in the machine, yes she felt that was right. The sensation of feet within steel corridors, the hum and heat of her machinery, the clang of tools in her workbays. But it was just that, ethereal not physical. Yet now . . . She thought for a moment.
If she just focused . . . one or the other. Each could be brought to the surface. Shaking her head the vision shifted, the feeling leaning more towards what was on the shallow surface then the beneaths' reality yet not quite without each. With it came a sense of lethargy, weakness. Falling to her knees Centurion felt the familiar yet unfamiliar feeling of the dirt through her knees. The checker patterned winter leggings letting the sensation through. The heavy clothes she was wearing alongside the exoskeleton had faded away. Leaving her in her aforementioned almost painted on leggings, some short shorts, an exercise top, and detached glove-sleeves. The shift came with her needing to suck in a breath. The air, as chilly as she somehow knew to expect. Also that she knew how to do such a thing as breathing. That seemed to break some dam as hundreds of different sensations merged into one in her body, once only distant memory but no longer. Now she too could have her own telling of the sensation. She sucked in a cold breath of air, the motion secondhand ad nauseum hundreds of times. Different throats, different times, different emotions. Sensations she somehow intellectually knew about but never experienced, it was dazzling. Bright, powerful. So much, too much. She laid there on the ground lost in herself. In the pumping of blood and the movement of air, of muscle and flesh. Until she heard a simple "Desu".
Two syllables she had not heard before. Not in that way. Looking onto the ground she found a figure. One that her eye estimated to only be the size of her finger at most. The tiny figure for some reason looked like a caricature of a person. Mostly a head that aped the image of an old Navy sailor. An officer from the shoulder patches. She caught sight of a gold plated gorget only given to those who had served from beginning to end in EW2, marred only by oil. Her CHENG1. Someone that was just looking at her, calmly. Slightly disappointed too, the eyepatch and scar really sold it along with the pipe in hand. She held that beady one eyed gaze with the figure a tiny percentage of her size. She stopped hyperventilating. It reached out to her with a tiny mug. She stretched out a hand and found a small shot glass, the familiar scent of engine room vodka. Her engine room vodka. It gave her a curt nod and another "Desu" before disappearing back into her, she had the vague sensation of a hatch being opened and shut. She knew what that felt like? Shaking her head again she brushed off the dirt and dust on her knees with one hand. This time not freezing from the sensation. Then she rocked back the slug of hard liquor, quality only gained from decades of handed down knowledge and experience.
Fortified, Centurion looked around. She saw the familiar sight of a craggy lichen and frost covered island. The sort that were not on any official maps because of just how tiny they were. She could see its entire length in a single turn of her head. The strong scent of cold salt air prevailed the atmosphere, the chill welcoming like an old friend. Patting things down in a motion she had seen but her new brain somehow knew to do she quickly and efficiently found all the bits and bobs on her. One pocket of her uniform held a stopwatch with the Imperial Coat of Arms emblazoned on its outer surface, another a compass, yet one more had an unopened pack of cigarettes, and her greatcoat held the scattered paraphernalia of an officer's kit.
Taking out her compass she looked to the sun. It shone brightly through the thin cloud cover. Noon if she was not mistaken. Taking out her sextant and her chronometer with all the skill of an experienced navigator she checked her position. She could not get an exact position with no way to tell if her measures were correlated to the maritime timezones so that left a decently large zone she was in, but it was close enough to Dutch Harbor for her to make a guess. Dutch Harbor was likely the best place for her to go, the once vibrant navy port was converted to a fishing port last she remembered. But the Imperial presence there as the EIC's (Europan Imperial Commonwealth) oldest arctic port should be enough to get some idea of what was going on. Well if she was where she thought she was. But the chill of the air, the look of the ice around. Yes she was in arctic waters, something deep in her told her that.
Did she have enough supplies to make it there? Did she even need supplies? Could she actually make this journey? Feeling within herself once more, she tried to find that zone again with her eyes shut. That nebulous state where she felt less like a person and more like a ship. Tried to truly immerse herself, being a person felt like a luxury. Something she did not want to let go, but a person could not traverse water and ice for potentially hundreds of kilometers. But her old self could. As she imagined the feeling of ice breaking beneath her prow and of her augur drive propellers churning ice and water equally with brute force she felt it. Not quite her but her in a separate package. Eyes opened, Centurion saw what had happened. Before her was a mix of snowmobile and stand up jetski, a large one seater. Like someone had reimagined one of her scout snowmobiles. But it floated on the water in front of her. Moreover, once again her coat had appeared, hanging off her shoulders like a cape. So too had the gear rigging.
Holstered at her side she recognized the weapons, two of the Mark VI 1899 Nagant revolver. Emblazoned with the royal insignia and her name alongside her recommissioning date on the side panels. The gunslinger's rig contained the quick attach silencers and spare loads of 7.62 long tokarev ammunition. Yet as she spotted the rounds her eyes seemed to . . . shift. One eye saw what was expected, normal pistol ammunition. The other saw something else, it saw shells. The shells for "her", Centurion's duo of revolver cannons. She knew somehow the action of placing the cartridge would trigger a process in an instant. Eyes on either side looked, both from firing directors and in the turrets themselves. Her postwar armament. Each pair on either side of her hull signaled readiness. A sensation told her that she could just as easily vanish the setup and let her guns howl from their place on her exoskeleton, the same for the rest of her armament.
A tentative step showed that she too could walk on water, the sensation alien yet not. So much weight compressing the water yet not until she could float. She lightly pressed a hand across the side of her mount as it slid off the island. It felt less like a thing of metal and more like an iron clad horse. One that was sadly restricted in power, it was not like she had some of her old y̺̱͍͡o̵͇͔̟u̙͖ ͚̜͉a҉͚̜̞͕͇͕̪r̻̬̮̙̪͔͓e͝ ҉͍̘̜̙͎͚ņ͇̯͓o͏̳̳̘̱t͚̗̝ ͕ṟ͔̱̖͠ͅe̻̠a̰̰͢d͙̰̞y̜̝͙͕̙͜ t̤̟̤̪̦͟h̙e̟r͟e̹̤̯ ̟̤͉̟i̸̱̘͈s̥͙̖͇ ̫͈̥b̡͓l͕̙̳̩̫͘is̘s͇̮̗ i̷͙̯̻̟̪n͉̩̞͘ ͕̰i̠̜g̩̥̞̪ͅn̦͖̟͚o͏͙̤͔͓r̺͈͈͚͔̻͘a̸͙͉͔n̸c͞è̬2.
Finding herself absentmindedly walking in circles around the snowmobile, Centurion felt a sense of deja vu. Shaking it off she swung herself onto the platform of the beast. The sensation of power under her legs as the machine purred to life with the engine firing up. It could move on its own at her direction just as much as she could personally direct it. But for now she decided to take control. A set of goggles and mittens in the glove compartment were swiftly put on as was her winter hat and scarf. Her legs firmly set, buckles attached, and posture just right she sped off. For a ship it was a slower max speed compared to some of the post EW2 designs, but as a person she could enjoy the speed. The sensation of the wind on her face but not overpowering as the spray of water seemed to slide off her just like it did her hull. Perhaps she did not need to be speedy for getting to her destination, it was not like she had a "definite" idea where she was. Yes that sounded good.
1. Chief Engineer
2. Lets just say that an Abyssal Centurion would remember the original purpose she was made for. On the flip side her Kai form would be less an upgrade of her current self and more the ability to project her EW2 era rig onto her. Did someone ask for shipgirl Valkyria?
PS1: All the artwork for characters from the VC world would probably be from Azur Lane along with the character traits but they would native to the VC world for the purpose of the fic. For the Kancolle side of things I was thinking about having it be the Kant-Colle Quest world since I was busy rereading that along with adapting some additional worldbuilding elements from a few other Kancolle crossover or other fics that I liked. Don't know if the author for KCQ is around to ask about permission for stuff.
Centurion considered her and it was definitely her current place. That was laying down on the cold dirt of some island, the waves lapping just a few feet away. It was strange, strange in a way that was not supposed to be possible. She was supposed to just be a thing, a complicated but non gendered machine. Once meant for war but not having served such for decades. She had not fired a shot in anger or had embarked soldiers for a military mission since the end of EW2 all the way to her retirement.
Looking at herself in the reflection of the water she found herself dressed in a large greatcoat, standard issue wear for the Imperial Navy during EW2. Underneath was a set of the Imperial Coast Guard dress uniform, the winter variant meant for her service in the Arctic Fleet and not as dated as the coat. Over it a number of mechanical parts vaguely reminiscent of the combat augmetics derived from the Imperial Artificial Valkyrur project. At least what she remembered at the time just before her internment as a museum ship. These were not the bulky exoskeletons she recalled a few of her cargo crew having. Looking things over it took a moment for her mind to ping to something. The colors looked fine, but the cut of everything, as if someone had decided to make everything a bit more risque. If she had seen her image as a piece of pin up art she would not have been surprised. It took a moment for her to stop running her hands all over herself. Centurion's first blush came from getting frisky with herself. She was not used to having some sort of, fleshy existence. A sort of ghost in the machine, yes she felt that was right. The sensation of feet within steel corridors, the hum and heat of her machinery, the clang of tools in her workbays. But it was just that, ethereal not physical. Yet now . . . She thought for a moment.
If she just focused . . . one or the other. Each could be brought to the surface. Shaking her head the vision shifted, the feeling leaning more towards what was on the shallow surface then the beneaths' reality yet not quite without each. With it came a sense of lethargy, weakness. Falling to her knees Centurion felt the familiar yet unfamiliar feeling of the dirt through her knees. The checker patterned winter leggings letting the sensation through. The heavy clothes she was wearing alongside the exoskeleton had faded away. Leaving her in her aforementioned almost painted on leggings, some short shorts, an exercise top, and detached glove-sleeves. The shift came with her needing to suck in a breath. The air, as chilly as she somehow knew to expect. Also that she knew how to do such a thing as breathing. That seemed to break some dam as hundreds of different sensations merged into one in her body, once only distant memory but no longer. Now she too could have her own telling of the sensation. She sucked in a cold breath of air, the motion secondhand ad nauseum hundreds of times. Different throats, different times, different emotions. Sensations she somehow intellectually knew about but never experienced, it was dazzling. Bright, powerful. So much, too much. She laid there on the ground lost in herself. In the pumping of blood and the movement of air, of muscle and flesh. Until she heard a simple "Desu".
Two syllables she had not heard before. Not in that way. Looking onto the ground she found a figure. One that her eye estimated to only be the size of her finger at most. The tiny figure for some reason looked like a caricature of a person. Mostly a head that aped the image of an old Navy sailor. An officer from the shoulder patches. She caught sight of a gold plated gorget only given to those who had served from beginning to end in EW2, marred only by oil. Her CHENG1. Someone that was just looking at her, calmly. Slightly disappointed too, the eyepatch and scar really sold it along with the pipe in hand. She held that beady one eyed gaze with the figure a tiny percentage of her size. She stopped hyperventilating. It reached out to her with a tiny mug. She stretched out a hand and found a small shot glass, the familiar scent of engine room vodka. Her engine room vodka. It gave her a curt nod and another "Desu" before disappearing back into her, she had the vague sensation of a hatch being opened and shut. She knew what that felt like? Shaking her head again she brushed off the dirt and dust on her knees with one hand. This time not freezing from the sensation. Then she rocked back the slug of hard liquor, quality only gained from decades of handed down knowledge and experience.
Fortified, Centurion looked around. She saw the familiar sight of a craggy lichen and frost covered island. The sort that were not on any official maps because of just how tiny they were. She could see its entire length in a single turn of her head. The strong scent of cold salt air prevailed the atmosphere, the chill welcoming like an old friend. Patting things down in a motion she had seen but her new brain somehow knew to do she quickly and efficiently found all the bits and bobs on her. One pocket of her uniform held a stopwatch with the Imperial Coat of Arms emblazoned on its outer surface, another a compass, yet one more had an unopened pack of cigarettes, and her greatcoat held the scattered paraphernalia of an officer's kit.
Taking out her compass she looked to the sun. It shone brightly through the thin cloud cover. Noon if she was not mistaken. Taking out her sextant and her chronometer with all the skill of an experienced navigator she checked her position. She could not get an exact position with no way to tell if her measures were correlated to the maritime timezones so that left a decently large zone she was in, but it was close enough to Dutch Harbor for her to make a guess. Dutch Harbor was likely the best place for her to go, the once vibrant navy port was converted to a fishing port last she remembered. But the Imperial presence there as the EIC's (Europan Imperial Commonwealth) oldest arctic port should be enough to get some idea of what was going on. Well if she was where she thought she was. But the chill of the air, the look of the ice around. Yes she was in arctic waters, something deep in her told her that.
Did she have enough supplies to make it there? Did she even need supplies? Could she actually make this journey? Feeling within herself once more, she tried to find that zone again with her eyes shut. That nebulous state where she felt less like a person and more like a ship. Tried to truly immerse herself, being a person felt like a luxury. Something she did not want to let go, but a person could not traverse water and ice for potentially hundreds of kilometers. But her old self could. As she imagined the feeling of ice breaking beneath her prow and of her augur drive propellers churning ice and water equally with brute force she felt it. Not quite her but her in a separate package. Eyes opened, Centurion saw what had happened. Before her was a mix of snowmobile and stand up jetski, a large one seater. Like someone had reimagined one of her scout snowmobiles. But it floated on the water in front of her. Moreover, once again her coat had appeared, hanging off her shoulders like a cape. So too had the gear rigging.
Holstered at her side she recognized the weapons, two of the Mark VI 1899 Nagant revolver. Emblazoned with the royal insignia and her name alongside her recommissioning date on the side panels. The gunslinger's rig contained the quick attach silencers and spare loads of 7.62 long tokarev ammunition. Yet as she spotted the rounds her eyes seemed to . . . shift. One eye saw what was expected, normal pistol ammunition. The other saw something else, it saw shells. The shells for "her", Centurion's duo of revolver cannons. She knew somehow the action of placing the cartridge would trigger a process in an instant. Eyes on either side looked, both from firing directors and in the turrets themselves. Her postwar armament. Each pair on either side of her hull signaled readiness. A sensation told her that she could just as easily vanish the setup and let her guns howl from their place on her exoskeleton, the same for the rest of her armament.
A tentative step showed that she too could walk on water, the sensation alien yet not. So much weight compressing the water yet not until she could float. She lightly pressed a hand across the side of her mount as it slid off the island. It felt less like a thing of metal and more like an iron clad horse. One that was sadly restricted in power, it was not like she had some of her old y̺̱͍͡o̵͇͔̟u̙͖ ͚̜͉a҉͚̜̞͕͇͕̪r̻̬̮̙̪͔͓e͝ ҉͍̘̜̙͎͚ņ͇̯͓o͏̳̳̘̱t͚̗̝ ͕ṟ͔̱̖͠ͅe̻̠a̰̰͢d͙̰̞y̜̝͙͕̙͜ t̤̟̤̪̦͟h̙e̟r͟e̹̤̯ ̟̤͉̟i̸̱̘͈s̥͙̖͇ ̫͈̥b̡͓l͕̙̳̩̫͘is̘s͇̮̗ i̷͙̯̻̟̪n͉̩̞͘ ͕̰i̠̜g̩̥̞̪ͅn̦͖̟͚o͏͙̤͔͓r̺͈͈͚͔̻͘a̸͙͉͔n̸c͞è̬2.
Finding herself absentmindedly walking in circles around the snowmobile, Centurion felt a sense of deja vu. Shaking it off she swung herself onto the platform of the beast. The sensation of power under her legs as the machine purred to life with the engine firing up. It could move on its own at her direction just as much as she could personally direct it. But for now she decided to take control. A set of goggles and mittens in the glove compartment were swiftly put on as was her winter hat and scarf. Her legs firmly set, buckles attached, and posture just right she sped off. For a ship it was a slower max speed compared to some of the post EW2 designs, but as a person she could enjoy the speed. The sensation of the wind on her face but not overpowering as the spray of water seemed to slide off her just like it did her hull. Perhaps she did not need to be speedy for getting to her destination, it was not like she had a "definite" idea where she was. Yes that sounded good.
1. Chief Engineer
2. Lets just say that an Abyssal Centurion would remember the original purpose she was made for. On the flip side her Kai form would be less an upgrade of her current self and more the ability to project her EW2 era rig onto her. Did someone ask for shipgirl Valkyria?
SMS Centurion (1936 Recommissioning)
Type: Amphibious assault/Commando Carrier ship
Displacement: 21,700 tons standard, 23,308 tons full
Length: 234 m
Width: 48.8 m
Speed 28 knots
Complement: 900 crew, 2 combined arms companies troops, 1x Valkyria
Armament:
4x AMP Cannons (PDB-Sd.Kfz 85mm gun)-Equivalent to 6in gun
12x 76mm Short DP guns (3 inch guns)
8x 37mm Autocannons (1.5 inch guns)
2x Experimental Radar Guided Glide Bombs
Lighter then Air:
10x Personal Transport Balloons
2x Light Utility/Transport Dirigible
Submersibles:
8x Crane Manned Torpedoes
Boats:
2x Fast Large Landing Craft
4x Fast Landing Craft
4x Gunboats (S-Boat)
Notable Equipment/Complement:
1 battery of 125mm Plasma Assisted Gun Carriers (equivalent to 8 in guns)
1 motorized rifle company in heavy armoured cars/transports
1 armoured cavalry company
SMS Centurion (1939 ASW/Midget Sub Refit)
Type: Amphibious assault/Convoy Escort ship
Displacement: 28,100 tons standard, 31,308 tons full
Length: 234 m
Width: 52.8 m
Speed 28 knots
Complement: 900 crew, 2 combined arms companies troops
Notable Equipment: Blueblood Reactor, Prototype Air Early Warning Radar, Naval Radar, Sonar
Armament:
4x 125mm MKII Plasma Assisted Gun (equivalent to 8in guns)
12x 105mm DP guns (4.13 inch)
8x 85mm DP guns (3 inch guns)
8x 37mm Autocannons (1.5 inch guns)
4x Strelka AShM
Lighter then Air:
2x Light Utility/Transport Dirigible
2x Scout/Patrol Autogyros
Submersibles:
4x Bullfrog Midget Submarines
Boats:
1x Fast Large Landing Craft
8x Fast Landing Craft
6x Gunboats (S-Boat)
SMS Centurion (1964 Coast Guard Refit)
Type: Cruiser-Carrier
Displacement: 35,650 tons standard, 37,602 tons full
Length: 258 m
Width: 60.8 m
Speed 28 knots
Complement: 1200 crew, 2 companies troops
Notable Equipment: Phased Radar Array, Towed Sonar Array
Armament:
2x 130mm DP Naval Revolver Cannons (5 inch guns)
4x 76mm Autoloading DP Guns
8x 30mm Twin-Barreled CIWS
4x Slynx Anti-Ship Complex (Dual Tube Multipurpose Torpedo+Shaped Charge Warhead)
2x Micro VLS
Aircraft:
8x VTOL Scout Fighters
4x VTOL Gunship/Utility Gyrocopters
Boats:
4x Heavy Tugs
4x Amphibious FAB
EW2 S-Boat
Type: Fast Attack Craft
Displacement: 98 tons standard, 110 tons full
Length: 33 m
Width: 6 m
Speed 44 knots/ 81 km/h
Complement: 21 crew
Armament:
1x 57mm Refurbished Tank Gun (Semiautomatic gunshield mount)
2x 37mm Autocannons
2x twin 8mm machine guns
6x light depth charges/ 3x 15-rack naval mines
2x torpedo tubes
Amphibious FAB (1960s)
Type: Fast Attack Craft
Displacement: 235 tons standard, 272 tons full
Length: 39 m
Width: 8 m
Speed 40 knots/ 74 km/h
Complement: 26 crew
Armament:
1x 76mm DP Gun (Gunshielded-semi automatic)
2x 30mm CIWS
2x 14.5mm HMG (Stand mounted)
2x Anti-Submarine rocket launchers
4x Upstream AShM tubes/ 4x small MLRS units/ Heavy Anti-Submarine Rocket Launchers
Orcinus Magnus Superheavy Submarine/Battleship (1936 refit)
Type: Submersible assault ship
Displacement: 18,430 tons standard, 20,102 tons full
Length: 253 m
Width: 48.8 m
Speed 24 knots, 17 knots submerged
Complement: 800 crew, 1 Battalion troops, 1 Lophius Mk II class Superheavy Submersible Tank
Armament:
5x Trojan 380mm Cannons (2 forward, 3 back) Equivalent to 15in gun
6x Fangen 75mm Harpoon Guns
12x 37mm Autocannons
Lighter then Air:
10x Personal Transport Balloons
1x Light Utility/Transport Dirigible
Submersibles:
12x Crane Manned Torpedoes
Boats:
4x Fast Large Landing Craft
8x Fast Landing Craft
Orcinus Magnus Block II Superheavy Submarine/Battleship (1968 Modernization)
Type: Semi-Stealth Submersible assault ship
Displacement: 18,270 tons standard, 19,504 tons full
Length: 241 m
Width: 48.8 m
Speed 26 knots, 20 knots submerged
Complement: 700 crew, 1 Battalion troops, 1 Akula Special Operations Vessel
Armament:
2x Experimental Coilgun (2 forward) Equivalent to 16in gun
4x 85mm Harpoon/Boarding Guns
8x 30mm Dual Barrel CIWS
4x 57mm CIWS
2x VLS Arrays
Heavier then Air:
1x VTOL Gunship/Utility Gyrocopter
Submersibles:
2x Orca Stealth Midget Submarines
4x Large Submersible Amphibious Landing Craft
Lophius Mk II
Length: 21.80M
Width: 13.20M
Height: 8.20M
Weight: 265T
Capacity: 30 Crew, 1 platoon passengers
Power: 1200HP/ 2,500RPM
Speed: 30KM/H
Range: 100KM
Armament:
2x 125mm MKI* Electro-Thermal Gun (Equivalent to 6 in gun)
2x 85mm cannon
X10 8mm Machine gun
Akula
Length: 20.90M
Width: 12.70M
Height: 8.20M
Weight: 260T
Capacity: 24 Crew, 1 platoon passengers
Speed: 30KM/H
Range: 100KM
Armament:
1x 125mm MKV Plasma Assisted Gun (Equivalent to 8 in gun)
1x Micro VLS
X8 8.5mm Machine gun
Orca Stealth Midget Submarine
Length: 30.20M
Width: 4.90M
Height: 5.20M
Weight: 400T
Capacity: 5 Crew, 1 team passengers
Power: Blueblood Reactor
Speed: 10KM/H
Depth: 250m
Endurance: 14 Days
Armament:
2x Micro VLS
Type: Amphibious assault/Commando Carrier ship
Displacement: 21,700 tons standard, 23,308 tons full
Length: 234 m
Width: 48.8 m
Speed 28 knots
Complement: 900 crew, 2 combined arms companies troops, 1x Valkyria
Armament:
4x AMP Cannons (PDB-Sd.Kfz 85mm gun)-Equivalent to 6in gun
12x 76mm Short DP guns (3 inch guns)
8x 37mm Autocannons (1.5 inch guns)
2x Experimental Radar Guided Glide Bombs
Lighter then Air:
10x Personal Transport Balloons
2x Light Utility/Transport Dirigible
Submersibles:
8x Crane Manned Torpedoes
Boats:
2x Fast Large Landing Craft
4x Fast Landing Craft
4x Gunboats (S-Boat)
Notable Equipment/Complement:
1 battery of 125mm Plasma Assisted Gun Carriers (equivalent to 8 in guns)
1 motorized rifle company in heavy armoured cars/transports
1 armoured cavalry company
SMS Centurion (1939 ASW/Midget Sub Refit)
Type: Amphibious assault/Convoy Escort ship
Displacement: 28,100 tons standard, 31,308 tons full
Length: 234 m
Width: 52.8 m
Speed 28 knots
Complement: 900 crew, 2 combined arms companies troops
Notable Equipment: Blueblood Reactor, Prototype Air Early Warning Radar, Naval Radar, Sonar
Armament:
4x 125mm MKII Plasma Assisted Gun (equivalent to 8in guns)
12x 105mm DP guns (4.13 inch)
8x 85mm DP guns (3 inch guns)
8x 37mm Autocannons (1.5 inch guns)
4x Strelka AShM
Lighter then Air:
2x Light Utility/Transport Dirigible
2x Scout/Patrol Autogyros
Submersibles:
4x Bullfrog Midget Submarines
Boats:
1x Fast Large Landing Craft
8x Fast Landing Craft
6x Gunboats (S-Boat)
SMS Centurion (1964 Coast Guard Refit)
Type: Cruiser-Carrier
Displacement: 35,650 tons standard, 37,602 tons full
Length: 258 m
Width: 60.8 m
Speed 28 knots
Complement: 1200 crew, 2 companies troops
Notable Equipment: Phased Radar Array, Towed Sonar Array
Armament:
2x 130mm DP Naval Revolver Cannons (5 inch guns)
4x 76mm Autoloading DP Guns
8x 30mm Twin-Barreled CIWS
4x Slynx Anti-Ship Complex (Dual Tube Multipurpose Torpedo+Shaped Charge Warhead)
2x Micro VLS
Aircraft:
8x VTOL Scout Fighters
4x VTOL Gunship/Utility Gyrocopters
Boats:
4x Heavy Tugs
4x Amphibious FAB
EW2 S-Boat
Type: Fast Attack Craft
Displacement: 98 tons standard, 110 tons full
Length: 33 m
Width: 6 m
Speed 44 knots/ 81 km/h
Complement: 21 crew
Armament:
1x 57mm Refurbished Tank Gun (Semiautomatic gunshield mount)
2x 37mm Autocannons
2x twin 8mm machine guns
6x light depth charges/ 3x 15-rack naval mines
2x torpedo tubes
Amphibious FAB (1960s)
Type: Fast Attack Craft
Displacement: 235 tons standard, 272 tons full
Length: 39 m
Width: 8 m
Speed 40 knots/ 74 km/h
Complement: 26 crew
Armament:
1x 76mm DP Gun (Gunshielded-semi automatic)
2x 30mm CIWS
2x 14.5mm HMG (Stand mounted)
2x Anti-Submarine rocket launchers
4x Upstream AShM tubes/ 4x small MLRS units/ Heavy Anti-Submarine Rocket Launchers
Orcinus Magnus Superheavy Submarine/Battleship (1936 refit)
Type: Submersible assault ship
Displacement: 18,430 tons standard, 20,102 tons full
Length: 253 m
Width: 48.8 m
Speed 24 knots, 17 knots submerged
Complement: 800 crew, 1 Battalion troops, 1 Lophius Mk II class Superheavy Submersible Tank
Armament:
5x Trojan 380mm Cannons (2 forward, 3 back) Equivalent to 15in gun
6x Fangen 75mm Harpoon Guns
12x 37mm Autocannons
Lighter then Air:
10x Personal Transport Balloons
1x Light Utility/Transport Dirigible
Submersibles:
12x Crane Manned Torpedoes
Boats:
4x Fast Large Landing Craft
8x Fast Landing Craft
Orcinus Magnus Block II Superheavy Submarine/Battleship (1968 Modernization)
Type: Semi-Stealth Submersible assault ship
Displacement: 18,270 tons standard, 19,504 tons full
Length: 241 m
Width: 48.8 m
Speed 26 knots, 20 knots submerged
Complement: 700 crew, 1 Battalion troops, 1 Akula Special Operations Vessel
Armament:
2x Experimental Coilgun (2 forward) Equivalent to 16in gun
4x 85mm Harpoon/Boarding Guns
8x 30mm Dual Barrel CIWS
4x 57mm CIWS
2x VLS Arrays
Heavier then Air:
1x VTOL Gunship/Utility Gyrocopter
Submersibles:
2x Orca Stealth Midget Submarines
4x Large Submersible Amphibious Landing Craft
Lophius Mk II
Length: 21.80M
Width: 13.20M
Height: 8.20M
Weight: 265T
Capacity: 30 Crew, 1 platoon passengers
Power: 1200HP/ 2,500RPM
Speed: 30KM/H
Range: 100KM
Armament:
2x 125mm MKI* Electro-Thermal Gun (Equivalent to 6 in gun)
2x 85mm cannon
X10 8mm Machine gun
Akula
Length: 20.90M
Width: 12.70M
Height: 8.20M
Weight: 260T
Capacity: 24 Crew, 1 platoon passengers
Speed: 30KM/H
Range: 100KM
Armament:
1x 125mm MKV Plasma Assisted Gun (Equivalent to 8 in gun)
1x Micro VLS
X8 8.5mm Machine gun
Orca Stealth Midget Submarine
Length: 30.20M
Width: 4.90M
Height: 5.20M
Weight: 400T
Capacity: 5 Crew, 1 team passengers
Power: Blueblood Reactor
Speed: 10KM/H
Depth: 250m
Endurance: 14 Days
Armament:
2x Micro VLS
PS1: All the artwork for characters from the VC world would probably be from Azur Lane along with the character traits but they would native to the VC world for the purpose of the fic. For the Kancolle side of things I was thinking about having it be the Kant-Colle Quest world since I was busy rereading that along with adapting some additional worldbuilding elements from a few other Kancolle crossover or other fics that I liked. Don't know if the author for KCQ is around to ask about permission for stuff.
Last edited:
BSG: Discovery- Finding the Thirteenth Tribe
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN1: A crossover between a setting known as Dawn of Victory 2289 which is someone's collab sci fi world building and nu Battlestar Galactica.
AN2: This series is commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle on Patreon.
AN3: The Galactica and its crew is hastily recommissioned and dispatched for an important archaeological mission. Just what will they find?
Zak Adama considered his current lot in life being buried in the guts of what must be the oldest fracking raptor in the Fleet. His head stuck in a welder's mask as he tried to get the fucking coolant system back together again. Not a great place to be, but nowhere near as bad as it once was. Getting near forcibly shifted to the maintenance operation sucked but considering how he was now under the direct eye of his father and his trusted inner circle, well . . . Best not give anything away that would make him seem less than competent. A cardinal sin to never be shown. So Zak knuckled down and did the drudge work while booking as many flight hours in simulators as possible. At least it kept him out of the direct chain of command of his wife Kara. Silver lining he supposed. Less people gave a fuss over them being deployed on the same ship. For as long as that would be, it would be the old girl's last mission. Same for his dad, while he kept quiet about it Dad was on the bad end of office politics and a few too many nepotistic decisions. That made Zak feel guilty but his dad seemed to be dealing with the issue in his own way and he wouldn't intervene.
His marriage made him think about how much he truly wanted to be a Viper pilot. He still wanted to be a combat pilot rather than just a raptor jockey. It had burned that he could not follow in the steps of his dad. Whenever he could he begged and bartered any chances he could get for a precious few actual flight hours in Vipers. But recently he was wondering about starting a family.
His thoughts were interrupted when his ears caught something. Looking over in the direction Zak saw the figure of the deck chief Tyrol. Popping his ear plugs Zak gave a wave. "Hey chief, something up or you just doing the rounds?".
Tyrol nodded. "Just came to give a head's up. This shifts almost over and everyone is buzzing over the expedition. Wanted to let you know ahead of time you got picked to be one of co-pilots to help shuttle people and stuff around. It will also be part of your job to lend a hand for anything that needs an engineer. We don't exactly have a full complement so it's all hands on deck".
A part of Zak wondered if he was being fed a sop for getting the shit jobs again. Tyrol though wasn't the sort to do that without at least being apologetic about it. So, this was probably true. "Got it chief, we got a time for that exactly?".
"Should be in the next few days, this is just me giving a head's up since I am going to have to shuffle the shifts around to deal with the transfers" Tyrol said.
Zak nodded. "Gotcha. I think I got the repairs done right but if you want to check go ahead, if shift is really almost up I should at least start cleaning up".
As the two got to work on their respective parts, across the ship the captain and his XO are having a chat in the near deserted bridge.
Leaning against the central command table he could at least count his blessings that Tigh was fully dressed and with only a minor stench of alcohol. If only because Tigh was saving the drinking session for later.
"Feels odd. Not having anyone else here. All the brats are sick so no one else till the next shift takes over" Tigh muttered, more to fill the silence then anything.
"Yes, it certainly feels like it. We really are reaching the end of our rope. Command simply wants us to be graceful leaving rather then having to be booted off" Adama replied.
Tigh grabbed the spittoon off his belt and hocked one in. "Fracking shitheads. Bah, maybe we are old haz beens. But we can still be something".
"We serve at the will of the government and the chain of command. Even if it is Adar" sighed Adama.
"Prestigious post my ass. Barely any support and having to babysit scientists" Tigh grumbled.
A brief smile graced Adama's lips. "Not feeling religious enough? Its a chance to know about what the 13th has been doing this entire time. Besides, at least it is not Baltar" he remarked.
Tigh snorted. "Aye, at least it is not that blowhard. Heh, the stories about that one". The two shook their heads and let the silence grow.
But for Adama, rather then a comfortable silence he felt for a moment the atmosphere of the empty room grows. His thoughts drifting until one particular thought arose. "Hmm, what are we a pair of housewives gossiping over scandals?" he mused rather melancholy.
Tigh's hand for a moment drifted to go within his uniform jacket before with a brief moment of strength he let it fall back to his side. "Hah, maybe we really should be put out to pasture. Not like we can share it with anyone that would stick around. Well, your kids might visit once in a while". For a moment rather than his bluster and bravado, Tigh looked sad. Vulnerable.
Adama patted his long-time friend's shoulder. "At least you have a chance to make something again of your relationship with Ellen. It would be a Sisyphusian task, but at least you have the opportunity".
Tigh made to brush off the hand roughly but settled for letting moving it off more gently. "Sounds like something happened recently".
"Carolanne. I think she only keeps in touch with me to try to twist the knife. I didn't do right by her I admit, so maybe it is only proper she tries to shame me. Apparently, she found someone, at least someone that is not some boytoy. I don't think I can be the better man and wish her well. Maybe she can make something else of her life, have that daughter she always wanted" Adama said.
"Humph" came from Tigh. A vaguely supportive noise as the two let silence come down on them again.
<><><>
A few days later the Galactica arrives above the surface of their destination planet, joining the scout ship that was in rotation in system alongside the now arriving science vessels. A quick check reveals no abnormalities in-system and quickly a schedule is hashed out for the transport arrangements. While no threats were uncovered so far there was still the need for an escort and patrol of the base being established on planet. Furthermore, the Galactica held additional supplies that would need to be shipped down.
For Zak Adama's own part he was streaking down into the atmosphere with a load of extra scientists for the field base being established within the chosen settlement they were investigating. A few buildings having been cleared out near the town center. Something that the newest batch of eggheads was busy arguing over. He got a look at their nametags, but it felt more fun to just give them letters. Especially with how loud they were being and that with no turbulence, flight was boring.
The one he called Alpha was currently making an argument to her colleague Beta. Gamma was playing impromptu mediator and Delta was just almost gleeful in stoking the flames.
Alpha began her argument with a raised fist, well as best as she could strapped into the Raptor crew bay. "The 13th are obviously atheistic, we have found no signs of the Lords of Kobol at all across the demographics from personal homes to temples. While obviously social piety on the level of the Gemonese is not the norm, the recovered data on a so-called "Trial of God" in the absence of renewed worship of the Lords seem to indicate a deliberate pivot away from religion in general".
Gamma cut in with his own words. "Just because that was the most cross-translated sample we found does not mean there were not misinterpretations already present before we translate it again. I am more interested in some of the statuary we have uncovered. The focus on a sickle and hammer seem to indicate great pride in their productive means along with the number of soldiers being depicted indicates a likely martial society. Especially with the images of figures from apparent other cultures being cast down. I am seeing parallels with aspects of Tauron's history. Perhaps a religious caste of leaders whose acts forced a complete shift in society during their overthrow? Power was then given to the common people in some form of direct democracy?".
Beta finished thinking of her retort and interrupted Gamma who was about to keep going. "No, that is inherently flawed. The 13th are their own people and to apply any of the modern 12 colonies to them is academically insane. There is no basis, and if you just say their shared humanity then you better be prepared to have your PHD status on the line. We have to go into this with our own detached observation, we have to keep as little bias as possible in each stage. Get the information first as comprehensively as possible and then we start interpreting. Then start the cycle again with fresh eyes".
Alpha came back swinging, well that sounded more exciting to Zak in his mind then what actually happened. Oh right paying attention to their debate. "... no. You are just trying to narrow mindedly denigrate hypotheses before we can even test them. You claim not to but you are just lying. I have seen your previous work. Do not try to sweep this under the rug".
Right judging by how red in the faces they were getting he had to step in. Making sure autopilot was on right he turned his head. "Alright you good for nothings no trying to strangle each other back there. I am not being paid to be a divorce lawyer so stop trying to kill each other where I have to deal with it. Besides, unless you feel like getting out then go ahead, I am sure you like being a marble when I start preparing for some "turbulence" we are about to hit. Now am I clear?". That got the group to calm down at last. Finally, some peace and quiet a thousand units high. Just what a man asked for.
<><><>
As part of the still being built up field base the pilots and crew of the Raptors were sitting under a pegged-up tarp along with some dismantled storage boxes for furniture. Field MREs being prepared for their meal.
Sharon Valerii was one of the other Raptor pilots taking a break. While checking her watch for the meal she spots Zak walking over, another MRE in his hands and a dirty rag slung over his shoulder.
"Hey, this space free? Just got off finishing maintenance" Zak said as he came near.
Sharon shrugged, "Sure, go ahead. Got any news or is it just the boffins continuing to argue in circles".
The two did not speak much as they quickly got their food cooked, as much as you could cook an MRE of course. But as they were squaring away everything Sharon noticed something. Zak taking out a chain from around his neck to stick a ring on his finger.
That got her thinking. Call them jitters. But she had them. She wasn't especially close to to Zak, but that might be a good thing in this case.
"Hey Zak. Think I could ask you a question. It might be a bit awkward, so if you don't want to answer then ..." she was interrupted by Zak as he spoke up. "Wondering how I got married? What the life is like?".
Sharon shifted on her crate, "Yeah" she managed to get out weakly.
Zak nodded. "Sure, I can saw a few things. Thinking about the Chief?". Sharon looked at Zak in shock after hearing that. "How . . . ".
Zak gave a look. "Do you really think no one noticed? At least among the deckhands and others in the hangers. Sure if Tigh heard you might be in trouble, but this is the final tour for most of us. Hell maybe even me" he let off unsure. Sharon looked confused and asked why.
"Just been having thoughts recently. Start a family, be the one at home since Kara is not exactly a nurturing figure and she wants to continue her career still. Not for a few years at least. It just, maybe I should start laying out the grounds for it. Not like I got anything really planned but maybe I should, just to see if I can," said Zak.
Sharon had a thought and asked. "Thought you wanted to be a Viper pilot? Get out of the Raptor track?".
"Yeah but, marriage. It changes you. None of my brothers have kids yet and I don't think they found anyone serious. There, just. Dad never really says anything but, he is about to retire. Maybe at least one of us should start wondering" Sharon nodded pensively, that was her biggest concern. Would she and Galen be good parents?
But she needed something else answered. "Shouldn't that be something you speak with Kara about?". Not that she could say much for herself on that front.
Zak rubbed his ring as he answered. "We did, sorta. It was awkward and we agreed to table the thing. But I just can't help thinking about it. We have time, but I sorta want Dad to be able to hold his grandkid. And I know that Kara cares about the old man too. I just wanna be sensitive about this. Get someone else's viewpoint if I am doing something wrong on my end?".
Sharon thought that over for a second and answered. "Doesn't exactly seem like there is only one answer for this sort of thing". She snorted as an idea popped into her head. "You know, couples dates are a thing. Think that couple's counseling exists?".
Zak laughed. "Hah, that certainly would be something. Still, does sound handy every once in a while". He paused as he seriously thought the idea over. "If I can manage to talk Kara into it maybe, not like we know too many other serious couples on the ship. At least amongst the pilots".
Sharon nodded. "Get me a half cubit and you got a deal". Before Zak could reply two sets of alarms went off. Both looked to their pagers and saw that lunch break was over.
The said their goodbyes and went off to their respective shifts. But as Zak walked, he mulled over his future. If he could not fulfill his own dream of being a Viper pilot, he could do other things for that future. At least serve out his time, if he manages to get a seat at long last then he would take it. But he considered that there were other ways to get into the seat of a Viper, if just the reserves or maybe a colonial Guard post. He could get at least a set of wings then. With peace looking like it would last that seemed a nice plan to have. Now just to see if it would fly with Kara.
<><><>
Zak back at the end of the day discovered that no, Tartarus was not a shadowy pit of terror and darkness. It was a group of academics who could not shut up. And he could not even zone out as the nighttime wind conditions were not exactly what one could call calm but it wasn't bad enough to keep him 100% focused. It was that sweet spot of total suffering. Dammit Sharon why did you have to win that card game. That flush was bullshit.
Alpha or was it Beta, fuck it he forgot was the loudest one so far. "To think. If what we can interpret from what appears to be a children's history textbook is clear, then Earth once had a three way perhaps even four-way civil War. We have the image of three flags clearly with possibly a space that held a fourth though the condition of the book means we do not know for sure. One can presume by the symbology of the Hammer and Sickle present in the settlement that we are in that one. A simple red flag and then that crossed tool symbol. Red must hold a great deal of ideological value to them"
Was it Gamma speaking now? He was just going to reassign the names, that would actually be easier. Now if he was only clever enough to get the ironically insulting versions this would be a bit nicer. "Hmm, human blood would seem to be the biggest likelihood I can think of. Though obviously there is likely to be multiple meanings that fluctuate based on time. Now hold back on your hate of Cross-Cultural Analysis and Cultural Universalism. We need something to act as a base of thought. Otherwise, we have nothing to prove wrong or right no?"
"Bah, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. LIke we are no better then some talking heads, we had enough issues with the Gemonese trying to protest the university" came from the new Beta.
Gamma spoke up. "I just wish we brought more linguists. The language the 13th are using is strange. While most of the colony appears to use one main language with a number of others. The lettering is obviously descended from the same Old Kobolian we know, but everything else is different".
Alpha continued shitposting things that would have a Gemonese faint from their blood exploding. "Yes indeed. The language drift is immense as expected. I am more curious on the additional languages you mentioned, some appear to have a few loanwords from Old Kobollian but to a minimum. It is obvious that the language roots are far different. I wonder if these are remnants of other tribes that did not survive in the 12 colonies but did with the 13th. Perhaps some ethnic strife was part of the reason that the 13th split? Can we truly assume there were just 13 tribes or was that just a convenient category our ancestors created?"
Apparently even Beta could not take things that far. "Okay calm down. That is a stretch too far. Let us focus on what we can".
Hmm, was this the same Gamma as before? "Though if we could continue for a moment on that thought. It doesn't exactly give good odds for peaceful diplomatic relations if that is true. Then again the sheer time gap may have washed that away. Most of us, besides some that are not to be mentioned have left behind that sort of blood feuds that could cause problems".
"Now now, no need to continue perpetuating the issues. Like I said lets get back on track". No that was the old Gamma. Wait what was the order he assigned the new ones? Frak.
Okay this is Alpha. "I am still fascinated by some of the possible translations from the latest book we recovered. An economic collapse was mentioned and then what looks like aliens. Honest to the Lords aliens. We have restored photographs that if our one religious studies scholar is right may actually be related to some ancient pictographs we have. Imagine, what we thought of as demons may actually be aliens, ones that our people encountered when the Lords still walked amongst us"
That is now Beta again. "If you are right then we might actually run into them. This settlement was abandoned not that long ago relatively speaking. The poor state of the infrastructure even before time took its toll may be the reason the colony declined, or it could be outside pressure whether other 13th members or these aliens"
"I think we are going off on more unsubstantiated gossip then actual hypotheses. Lets wait to see if we can correlate any actual information before we take a single book and treat it like the Gemonese do the Scrolls". And that is Gamma.
"True, could be a fiction book for all we know. Still would be fascinating though, if the image of these "Scinfaxi" is anything then some mythology from when the 13 tribes were still whole survives to recent times". Okay now that, that sounded interesting. But sadly, he got a buzz from the CAG before he could actually hear something interesting for once. Following the procedure, he got himself an assigned berth. Now, just to get something back.
"Alright ladies, your showtime is up. Boarding is in the next five minutes. So would you all kindly shut it for the rest of the journey. You can get back to your thing when its not on my time". The glares only made his shriveled heart get a little bit of warmth back. Now if only they had had enough fuel left to pull his threat of "Turbulence Adjustments" like he said he would have on the flight in. If only they had had the fuel . . .
AN2: This series is commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle on Patreon.
AN3: The Galactica and its crew is hastily recommissioned and dispatched for an important archaeological mission. Just what will they find?
Zak Adama considered his current lot in life being buried in the guts of what must be the oldest fracking raptor in the Fleet. His head stuck in a welder's mask as he tried to get the fucking coolant system back together again. Not a great place to be, but nowhere near as bad as it once was. Getting near forcibly shifted to the maintenance operation sucked but considering how he was now under the direct eye of his father and his trusted inner circle, well . . . Best not give anything away that would make him seem less than competent. A cardinal sin to never be shown. So Zak knuckled down and did the drudge work while booking as many flight hours in simulators as possible. At least it kept him out of the direct chain of command of his wife Kara. Silver lining he supposed. Less people gave a fuss over them being deployed on the same ship. For as long as that would be, it would be the old girl's last mission. Same for his dad, while he kept quiet about it Dad was on the bad end of office politics and a few too many nepotistic decisions. That made Zak feel guilty but his dad seemed to be dealing with the issue in his own way and he wouldn't intervene.
His marriage made him think about how much he truly wanted to be a Viper pilot. He still wanted to be a combat pilot rather than just a raptor jockey. It had burned that he could not follow in the steps of his dad. Whenever he could he begged and bartered any chances he could get for a precious few actual flight hours in Vipers. But recently he was wondering about starting a family.
His thoughts were interrupted when his ears caught something. Looking over in the direction Zak saw the figure of the deck chief Tyrol. Popping his ear plugs Zak gave a wave. "Hey chief, something up or you just doing the rounds?".
Tyrol nodded. "Just came to give a head's up. This shifts almost over and everyone is buzzing over the expedition. Wanted to let you know ahead of time you got picked to be one of co-pilots to help shuttle people and stuff around. It will also be part of your job to lend a hand for anything that needs an engineer. We don't exactly have a full complement so it's all hands on deck".
A part of Zak wondered if he was being fed a sop for getting the shit jobs again. Tyrol though wasn't the sort to do that without at least being apologetic about it. So, this was probably true. "Got it chief, we got a time for that exactly?".
"Should be in the next few days, this is just me giving a head's up since I am going to have to shuffle the shifts around to deal with the transfers" Tyrol said.
Zak nodded. "Gotcha. I think I got the repairs done right but if you want to check go ahead, if shift is really almost up I should at least start cleaning up".
As the two got to work on their respective parts, across the ship the captain and his XO are having a chat in the near deserted bridge.
Leaning against the central command table he could at least count his blessings that Tigh was fully dressed and with only a minor stench of alcohol. If only because Tigh was saving the drinking session for later.
"Feels odd. Not having anyone else here. All the brats are sick so no one else till the next shift takes over" Tigh muttered, more to fill the silence then anything.
"Yes, it certainly feels like it. We really are reaching the end of our rope. Command simply wants us to be graceful leaving rather then having to be booted off" Adama replied.
Tigh grabbed the spittoon off his belt and hocked one in. "Fracking shitheads. Bah, maybe we are old haz beens. But we can still be something".
"We serve at the will of the government and the chain of command. Even if it is Adar" sighed Adama.
"Prestigious post my ass. Barely any support and having to babysit scientists" Tigh grumbled.
A brief smile graced Adama's lips. "Not feeling religious enough? Its a chance to know about what the 13th has been doing this entire time. Besides, at least it is not Baltar" he remarked.
Tigh snorted. "Aye, at least it is not that blowhard. Heh, the stories about that one". The two shook their heads and let the silence grow.
But for Adama, rather then a comfortable silence he felt for a moment the atmosphere of the empty room grows. His thoughts drifting until one particular thought arose. "Hmm, what are we a pair of housewives gossiping over scandals?" he mused rather melancholy.
Tigh's hand for a moment drifted to go within his uniform jacket before with a brief moment of strength he let it fall back to his side. "Hah, maybe we really should be put out to pasture. Not like we can share it with anyone that would stick around. Well, your kids might visit once in a while". For a moment rather than his bluster and bravado, Tigh looked sad. Vulnerable.
Adama patted his long-time friend's shoulder. "At least you have a chance to make something again of your relationship with Ellen. It would be a Sisyphusian task, but at least you have the opportunity".
Tigh made to brush off the hand roughly but settled for letting moving it off more gently. "Sounds like something happened recently".
"Carolanne. I think she only keeps in touch with me to try to twist the knife. I didn't do right by her I admit, so maybe it is only proper she tries to shame me. Apparently, she found someone, at least someone that is not some boytoy. I don't think I can be the better man and wish her well. Maybe she can make something else of her life, have that daughter she always wanted" Adama said.
"Humph" came from Tigh. A vaguely supportive noise as the two let silence come down on them again.
<><><>
A few days later the Galactica arrives above the surface of their destination planet, joining the scout ship that was in rotation in system alongside the now arriving science vessels. A quick check reveals no abnormalities in-system and quickly a schedule is hashed out for the transport arrangements. While no threats were uncovered so far there was still the need for an escort and patrol of the base being established on planet. Furthermore, the Galactica held additional supplies that would need to be shipped down.
For Zak Adama's own part he was streaking down into the atmosphere with a load of extra scientists for the field base being established within the chosen settlement they were investigating. A few buildings having been cleared out near the town center. Something that the newest batch of eggheads was busy arguing over. He got a look at their nametags, but it felt more fun to just give them letters. Especially with how loud they were being and that with no turbulence, flight was boring.
The one he called Alpha was currently making an argument to her colleague Beta. Gamma was playing impromptu mediator and Delta was just almost gleeful in stoking the flames.
Alpha began her argument with a raised fist, well as best as she could strapped into the Raptor crew bay. "The 13th are obviously atheistic, we have found no signs of the Lords of Kobol at all across the demographics from personal homes to temples. While obviously social piety on the level of the Gemonese is not the norm, the recovered data on a so-called "Trial of God" in the absence of renewed worship of the Lords seem to indicate a deliberate pivot away from religion in general".
Gamma cut in with his own words. "Just because that was the most cross-translated sample we found does not mean there were not misinterpretations already present before we translate it again. I am more interested in some of the statuary we have uncovered. The focus on a sickle and hammer seem to indicate great pride in their productive means along with the number of soldiers being depicted indicates a likely martial society. Especially with the images of figures from apparent other cultures being cast down. I am seeing parallels with aspects of Tauron's history. Perhaps a religious caste of leaders whose acts forced a complete shift in society during their overthrow? Power was then given to the common people in some form of direct democracy?".
Beta finished thinking of her retort and interrupted Gamma who was about to keep going. "No, that is inherently flawed. The 13th are their own people and to apply any of the modern 12 colonies to them is academically insane. There is no basis, and if you just say their shared humanity then you better be prepared to have your PHD status on the line. We have to go into this with our own detached observation, we have to keep as little bias as possible in each stage. Get the information first as comprehensively as possible and then we start interpreting. Then start the cycle again with fresh eyes".
Alpha came back swinging, well that sounded more exciting to Zak in his mind then what actually happened. Oh right paying attention to their debate. "... no. You are just trying to narrow mindedly denigrate hypotheses before we can even test them. You claim not to but you are just lying. I have seen your previous work. Do not try to sweep this under the rug".
Right judging by how red in the faces they were getting he had to step in. Making sure autopilot was on right he turned his head. "Alright you good for nothings no trying to strangle each other back there. I am not being paid to be a divorce lawyer so stop trying to kill each other where I have to deal with it. Besides, unless you feel like getting out then go ahead, I am sure you like being a marble when I start preparing for some "turbulence" we are about to hit. Now am I clear?". That got the group to calm down at last. Finally, some peace and quiet a thousand units high. Just what a man asked for.
<><><>
As part of the still being built up field base the pilots and crew of the Raptors were sitting under a pegged-up tarp along with some dismantled storage boxes for furniture. Field MREs being prepared for their meal.
Sharon Valerii was one of the other Raptor pilots taking a break. While checking her watch for the meal she spots Zak walking over, another MRE in his hands and a dirty rag slung over his shoulder.
"Hey, this space free? Just got off finishing maintenance" Zak said as he came near.
Sharon shrugged, "Sure, go ahead. Got any news or is it just the boffins continuing to argue in circles".
The two did not speak much as they quickly got their food cooked, as much as you could cook an MRE of course. But as they were squaring away everything Sharon noticed something. Zak taking out a chain from around his neck to stick a ring on his finger.
That got her thinking. Call them jitters. But she had them. She wasn't especially close to to Zak, but that might be a good thing in this case.
"Hey Zak. Think I could ask you a question. It might be a bit awkward, so if you don't want to answer then ..." she was interrupted by Zak as he spoke up. "Wondering how I got married? What the life is like?".
Sharon shifted on her crate, "Yeah" she managed to get out weakly.
Zak nodded. "Sure, I can saw a few things. Thinking about the Chief?". Sharon looked at Zak in shock after hearing that. "How . . . ".
Zak gave a look. "Do you really think no one noticed? At least among the deckhands and others in the hangers. Sure if Tigh heard you might be in trouble, but this is the final tour for most of us. Hell maybe even me" he let off unsure. Sharon looked confused and asked why.
"Just been having thoughts recently. Start a family, be the one at home since Kara is not exactly a nurturing figure and she wants to continue her career still. Not for a few years at least. It just, maybe I should start laying out the grounds for it. Not like I got anything really planned but maybe I should, just to see if I can," said Zak.
Sharon had a thought and asked. "Thought you wanted to be a Viper pilot? Get out of the Raptor track?".
"Yeah but, marriage. It changes you. None of my brothers have kids yet and I don't think they found anyone serious. There, just. Dad never really says anything but, he is about to retire. Maybe at least one of us should start wondering" Sharon nodded pensively, that was her biggest concern. Would she and Galen be good parents?
But she needed something else answered. "Shouldn't that be something you speak with Kara about?". Not that she could say much for herself on that front.
Zak rubbed his ring as he answered. "We did, sorta. It was awkward and we agreed to table the thing. But I just can't help thinking about it. We have time, but I sorta want Dad to be able to hold his grandkid. And I know that Kara cares about the old man too. I just wanna be sensitive about this. Get someone else's viewpoint if I am doing something wrong on my end?".
Sharon thought that over for a second and answered. "Doesn't exactly seem like there is only one answer for this sort of thing". She snorted as an idea popped into her head. "You know, couples dates are a thing. Think that couple's counseling exists?".
Zak laughed. "Hah, that certainly would be something. Still, does sound handy every once in a while". He paused as he seriously thought the idea over. "If I can manage to talk Kara into it maybe, not like we know too many other serious couples on the ship. At least amongst the pilots".
Sharon nodded. "Get me a half cubit and you got a deal". Before Zak could reply two sets of alarms went off. Both looked to their pagers and saw that lunch break was over.
The said their goodbyes and went off to their respective shifts. But as Zak walked, he mulled over his future. If he could not fulfill his own dream of being a Viper pilot, he could do other things for that future. At least serve out his time, if he manages to get a seat at long last then he would take it. But he considered that there were other ways to get into the seat of a Viper, if just the reserves or maybe a colonial Guard post. He could get at least a set of wings then. With peace looking like it would last that seemed a nice plan to have. Now just to see if it would fly with Kara.
<><><>
Zak back at the end of the day discovered that no, Tartarus was not a shadowy pit of terror and darkness. It was a group of academics who could not shut up. And he could not even zone out as the nighttime wind conditions were not exactly what one could call calm but it wasn't bad enough to keep him 100% focused. It was that sweet spot of total suffering. Dammit Sharon why did you have to win that card game. That flush was bullshit.
Alpha or was it Beta, fuck it he forgot was the loudest one so far. "To think. If what we can interpret from what appears to be a children's history textbook is clear, then Earth once had a three way perhaps even four-way civil War. We have the image of three flags clearly with possibly a space that held a fourth though the condition of the book means we do not know for sure. One can presume by the symbology of the Hammer and Sickle present in the settlement that we are in that one. A simple red flag and then that crossed tool symbol. Red must hold a great deal of ideological value to them"
Was it Gamma speaking now? He was just going to reassign the names, that would actually be easier. Now if he was only clever enough to get the ironically insulting versions this would be a bit nicer. "Hmm, human blood would seem to be the biggest likelihood I can think of. Though obviously there is likely to be multiple meanings that fluctuate based on time. Now hold back on your hate of Cross-Cultural Analysis and Cultural Universalism. We need something to act as a base of thought. Otherwise, we have nothing to prove wrong or right no?"
"Bah, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. LIke we are no better then some talking heads, we had enough issues with the Gemonese trying to protest the university" came from the new Beta.
Gamma spoke up. "I just wish we brought more linguists. The language the 13th are using is strange. While most of the colony appears to use one main language with a number of others. The lettering is obviously descended from the same Old Kobolian we know, but everything else is different".
Alpha continued shitposting things that would have a Gemonese faint from their blood exploding. "Yes indeed. The language drift is immense as expected. I am more curious on the additional languages you mentioned, some appear to have a few loanwords from Old Kobollian but to a minimum. It is obvious that the language roots are far different. I wonder if these are remnants of other tribes that did not survive in the 12 colonies but did with the 13th. Perhaps some ethnic strife was part of the reason that the 13th split? Can we truly assume there were just 13 tribes or was that just a convenient category our ancestors created?"
Apparently even Beta could not take things that far. "Okay calm down. That is a stretch too far. Let us focus on what we can".
Hmm, was this the same Gamma as before? "Though if we could continue for a moment on that thought. It doesn't exactly give good odds for peaceful diplomatic relations if that is true. Then again the sheer time gap may have washed that away. Most of us, besides some that are not to be mentioned have left behind that sort of blood feuds that could cause problems".
"Now now, no need to continue perpetuating the issues. Like I said lets get back on track". No that was the old Gamma. Wait what was the order he assigned the new ones? Frak.
Okay this is Alpha. "I am still fascinated by some of the possible translations from the latest book we recovered. An economic collapse was mentioned and then what looks like aliens. Honest to the Lords aliens. We have restored photographs that if our one religious studies scholar is right may actually be related to some ancient pictographs we have. Imagine, what we thought of as demons may actually be aliens, ones that our people encountered when the Lords still walked amongst us"
That is now Beta again. "If you are right then we might actually run into them. This settlement was abandoned not that long ago relatively speaking. The poor state of the infrastructure even before time took its toll may be the reason the colony declined, or it could be outside pressure whether other 13th members or these aliens"
"I think we are going off on more unsubstantiated gossip then actual hypotheses. Lets wait to see if we can correlate any actual information before we take a single book and treat it like the Gemonese do the Scrolls". And that is Gamma.
"True, could be a fiction book for all we know. Still would be fascinating though, if the image of these "Scinfaxi" is anything then some mythology from when the 13 tribes were still whole survives to recent times". Okay now that, that sounded interesting. But sadly, he got a buzz from the CAG before he could actually hear something interesting for once. Following the procedure, he got himself an assigned berth. Now, just to get something back.
"Alright ladies, your showtime is up. Boarding is in the next five minutes. So would you all kindly shut it for the rest of the journey. You can get back to your thing when its not on my time". The glares only made his shriveled heart get a little bit of warmth back. Now if only they had had enough fuel left to pull his threat of "Turbulence Adjustments" like he said he would have on the flight in. If only they had had the fuel . . .
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BSG: Discovery- Growing Mystery
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN: The sequel to the last part BSG: Discovery- Finding the Thirteenth Tribe
AN2: The archaeological mission dispatched by the 12 Colonies of Kobol has established itself on the abandoned planet of the 13th tribe, can they find any answers to their questions or will it be like a hydra?
One Nathaniel Rodinou on the one hand counted himself lucky to have been chosen to be a part of this expedition to uncover what had happened to the 13th tribe. To finally know what sort of people they were, he wasn't a fundamentalist of the Scrolls, but there was only so much one can do as an anthropologist without involving the Scrolls. On the other hand, he felt as if he was walking on a grave, a grave and an unsolved crime. This world, it was obviously not the colony that had settled after their exodus from Kobol. But why was it settled in the first place? It was not an unlivable world from the surveys, but it did not offer much of anything. A mediocre world he was forced to admit. Still all he had to do now was to uncover any clues that might be here, which meant trapezing through the tenement housing that the 13th seemed to favor on the world. Cramped enough that only a Gemonese would feel happy in the poverty here. Would have claimed it helped cleanse the soul for the Lords. But it was creepy as hell with how everything was drab concrete of one sort or another, only rarely did he see anything other than grey walls, ceilings, and floors. It felt suffocating as he walked the halls, like he was inside some massive stone beast.
Not helped by the hazmat suit he was in and the plethora of stuff hanging off the harness, camera, compass, etc. Not with the tight shallow breathes he had to take, the constant need to keep an eye on the wrist mounted oxygen gauge. The rad counter and other hazard sensors hadn't gone off, but he could swear he heard a phantom ticking somewhere. It was just his mind making things up, he hoped. Taking a moment Nathaniel shined his flashlight on the ground. He had to walk slow and carefully, the floors were aging and he did not want to fall a few stories down. The floor plans of the prefab buildings were both easy to navigate and confusing. All identical hallways and rooms with no real landmarks, he felt something beyond deja vu as he had the chance to go up or down a floor. The signs in some strange kobolian dialect were utterly useless. Definitely not trusting the cage-like elevator either. All rusty metal thanks to a hole in the roof having leaked water for a long time. Just being near it made him hear one too many creaks to be happy. One step, and he wouldn't need to worry about getting a pension from the University anymore.
Turning and looking into yet another Nathaniel found only another cubicle of a place. The same mass-produced bunk beds, cabinets, and chairs. Bare worn-down wood, the fabrics that may have been there now only scrap. Maybe a rat had made a nest from the pieces from the look of it, but it was long abandoned. The light came through into the otherwise dark room through a narrow slit of a window whose shutters hung from one hinge. Not even dust being highlighted by the light. Stepping into the room he did the same thing he did to the last few dozen, take a picture, check for any human made marks or graffiti on surfaces, take a picture if so, then check the cabinets. Sometimes they had alot of junk, other times not so much. The few times he found the scene of what was obviously a meal set out long ago creeped him out at first. At times he swore he could hear something at the edge of perception, could make out where people were. But no he was kidding himself, definitely not feeling watched. All in his mind. Definitely not going to be offering food to Hades to keep the evil spirits away.
Those feelings however were nothing, not when compared to the few dolls he had found. Creepy things. He could swear that their beady plastic eyes were looking at him. Thank him that it was not going to be the job of one Nathaniel to check the helmet footage. Someone else could enjoy the fucking ambient noise and motion blur jump scares of the fraking environment. Once was enough. Shaking his head, he left for the next room after tagging the searched room's doorway. This one he hoped would have something. These tenements had tiers to their quality. The rooms with single beds tended to have more artifacts, more likely to have books that would hopefully be restored. And when he saw what was on the wall he knew for sure that would be what won him the messroom pot. That cake would be his!!
<><><>
Richard Nassou looked over the pile of data he had after recording the tallies from all the recovered diaries, log entries, and other personal texts they had. Only now looking at the data did he find something odd. Especially now having the opportunity to pin them all on a corkboard to sort out his thoughts. Snapshots of each log and their markered in translation spread across the surface. They all ended on the same day. This personal diary recovered from a tenement. The desiccated paper thing? Complaining about delays of the rations if the translation he got was right. This logbook from some military building made in some durable resin impregnated paper. Last entry on a certain day. The digitized maintenance record for some fossil fuel power plant? Same day. How. How was this so coordinated? No mention was made of any evacuation beyond what seemed to be generic protocols. A settlement of this size? There would have been signs physically, someone would have written down something, or at least sent out messages on the net. Nothing physical or digital was found about a recent evacuation. Just people vanishing in the middle of a day judging by the cut off of service recordings. Just everything shut down, but no sign of people having bothered to do so. One second at their posts, gone the next to an empty and silent ghost town.
He, he needed a second opinion. Leaving the room, he had to rub his eyes, realizing how the light through the nearby window showed it was nearing night for the world. The base camp's lightning having already automatically engaged. Shift was almost over then, but not quite. Reaching the next room in the large tent building he found his colleague Professor Shera Vassakis. Knocking on a nearby piece of furniture he got her attention from her perusing a binder. "Hey Sherry, I just did some stat analysis and I need a second set of eyes to see that I am not seeing something that doesn't exist. You at a good spot to stop or should I let this off till tomorrow?".
Sherry shook her head. "No, just doublechecking some of the log counts. Why? What did you find?".
With Sherry right behind him he strode back to the board. "I noticed something disturbing from compiling the start and end dates for the translations we have. They all had the same recorded last date of entry. I still don't have a good grasp of their timekeeping, but it is obviously the same date. What is worse is that we pulled automatic service logs and they are the same as the written entries from the entire settlement. A cut off point sometime at noon for the world on the same day. Take a look".
Sherry turned to the corkboard and traced her finger along each of the color-coded stringed pins. A diagram that all connected different texts to the same conclusion. Richard stepped to his desk and grabbed up the logs he had on his data pad. "Here take a look yourself. All the same last date, none with a further time stamp beyond noon like I said".
"Are you sure it's not bias? Maybe the power went out at that time and none of the automatic systems could keep going? Its not like most of the written work have timestamps, just the dates" she asked.
Richard shook his head. "No, some of the facilities we can confirm have backup generators with automatic sequences. They didn't activate though, and I mean all of them. That is not normal. Even if the 13th did shoddy work, I doubt that all would have failed with no discernable physical problems. Especially since they aren't computer controlled in many cases"
"Definitely a mystery" Sherry said at last. Whatever she was going to add on was stopped however when they heard a commotion at the entrance of the tent. Loud clanging and cursing as someone rather enthusiastically tried to shuck off a suit and failing.
"The hell" Richard muttered as he followed Sherry in checking it out.
Before the pair's sight was that of their other colleague Nathan, brandishing a data drive he just pulled from his suit. "I found something; you need to see this now!!". Sherry tried to ask him but he just rushed past to grab an empty terminal. Plugging in the drive the man quickly and frantically pulled something up on display. "I think this is enough to win me the most impressive find of the week hands down".
Richard's angry retort died off as he saw what Nathan had pulled up. A map, a galaxy map. The motherload. They hadn't found one yet, only maps of the colony.
Nathan started babbling. "I think the room I found this in belongs to some sort of stellar cartographer, need to see if the pics i took of the bookshelf match. This was shown up big above some worktable, you can see its incomplete, so someone was actually working on it. But you can see. . .".
Sherry cut in. "The 13th, we need to translate this legend. Does, does this have the location of Earth or Kobol?".
Nathan pointed to a spot on the map, the image zooming in quickly. "Here, I think this is the colony we are on. It's just a bunch of numbers and letters but it roughly matches our own maps if I remember right. But this one, near ours in question, it has a name we can translate. If I remember the dictionary right the closest, we have to it is Gateway. Gateway Colony. Definitely a name loaded with meaning. Did the 13th know we were here? Were they preparing to come visit us?".
"That, that" was the only things Richard could get out. This, this was stunning. Totally unprofessional to conclude, but so tantalizing to consider.
Sherry took a breath for a moment to center herself. "We can write up wild ideas, but we need more information. We should suit up, alert the others. This is now number one priority we have. I can get the call started to the Galactica for support. You get the others here now, if anyone complains then hang them by their belts. We NEED to get on this".
The tent was quickly a mess of activity as the trio set to work, this could be the most pivotal discovery on the planet. And if it led to other things? They would be immortalized forever. The question of just why this colony had been deserted so mysteriously of course was no longer in their minds. Too consumed by their own professional greed and glory seeking. Would they find out eventually? Perhaps. Certainly, needed to find out about the cake.
AN2: The archaeological mission dispatched by the 12 Colonies of Kobol has established itself on the abandoned planet of the 13th tribe, can they find any answers to their questions or will it be like a hydra?
One Nathaniel Rodinou on the one hand counted himself lucky to have been chosen to be a part of this expedition to uncover what had happened to the 13th tribe. To finally know what sort of people they were, he wasn't a fundamentalist of the Scrolls, but there was only so much one can do as an anthropologist without involving the Scrolls. On the other hand, he felt as if he was walking on a grave, a grave and an unsolved crime. This world, it was obviously not the colony that had settled after their exodus from Kobol. But why was it settled in the first place? It was not an unlivable world from the surveys, but it did not offer much of anything. A mediocre world he was forced to admit. Still all he had to do now was to uncover any clues that might be here, which meant trapezing through the tenement housing that the 13th seemed to favor on the world. Cramped enough that only a Gemonese would feel happy in the poverty here. Would have claimed it helped cleanse the soul for the Lords. But it was creepy as hell with how everything was drab concrete of one sort or another, only rarely did he see anything other than grey walls, ceilings, and floors. It felt suffocating as he walked the halls, like he was inside some massive stone beast.
Not helped by the hazmat suit he was in and the plethora of stuff hanging off the harness, camera, compass, etc. Not with the tight shallow breathes he had to take, the constant need to keep an eye on the wrist mounted oxygen gauge. The rad counter and other hazard sensors hadn't gone off, but he could swear he heard a phantom ticking somewhere. It was just his mind making things up, he hoped. Taking a moment Nathaniel shined his flashlight on the ground. He had to walk slow and carefully, the floors were aging and he did not want to fall a few stories down. The floor plans of the prefab buildings were both easy to navigate and confusing. All identical hallways and rooms with no real landmarks, he felt something beyond deja vu as he had the chance to go up or down a floor. The signs in some strange kobolian dialect were utterly useless. Definitely not trusting the cage-like elevator either. All rusty metal thanks to a hole in the roof having leaked water for a long time. Just being near it made him hear one too many creaks to be happy. One step, and he wouldn't need to worry about getting a pension from the University anymore.
Turning and looking into yet another Nathaniel found only another cubicle of a place. The same mass-produced bunk beds, cabinets, and chairs. Bare worn-down wood, the fabrics that may have been there now only scrap. Maybe a rat had made a nest from the pieces from the look of it, but it was long abandoned. The light came through into the otherwise dark room through a narrow slit of a window whose shutters hung from one hinge. Not even dust being highlighted by the light. Stepping into the room he did the same thing he did to the last few dozen, take a picture, check for any human made marks or graffiti on surfaces, take a picture if so, then check the cabinets. Sometimes they had alot of junk, other times not so much. The few times he found the scene of what was obviously a meal set out long ago creeped him out at first. At times he swore he could hear something at the edge of perception, could make out where people were. But no he was kidding himself, definitely not feeling watched. All in his mind. Definitely not going to be offering food to Hades to keep the evil spirits away.
Those feelings however were nothing, not when compared to the few dolls he had found. Creepy things. He could swear that their beady plastic eyes were looking at him. Thank him that it was not going to be the job of one Nathaniel to check the helmet footage. Someone else could enjoy the fucking ambient noise and motion blur jump scares of the fraking environment. Once was enough. Shaking his head, he left for the next room after tagging the searched room's doorway. This one he hoped would have something. These tenements had tiers to their quality. The rooms with single beds tended to have more artifacts, more likely to have books that would hopefully be restored. And when he saw what was on the wall he knew for sure that would be what won him the messroom pot. That cake would be his!!
<><><>
Richard Nassou looked over the pile of data he had after recording the tallies from all the recovered diaries, log entries, and other personal texts they had. Only now looking at the data did he find something odd. Especially now having the opportunity to pin them all on a corkboard to sort out his thoughts. Snapshots of each log and their markered in translation spread across the surface. They all ended on the same day. This personal diary recovered from a tenement. The desiccated paper thing? Complaining about delays of the rations if the translation he got was right. This logbook from some military building made in some durable resin impregnated paper. Last entry on a certain day. The digitized maintenance record for some fossil fuel power plant? Same day. How. How was this so coordinated? No mention was made of any evacuation beyond what seemed to be generic protocols. A settlement of this size? There would have been signs physically, someone would have written down something, or at least sent out messages on the net. Nothing physical or digital was found about a recent evacuation. Just people vanishing in the middle of a day judging by the cut off of service recordings. Just everything shut down, but no sign of people having bothered to do so. One second at their posts, gone the next to an empty and silent ghost town.
He, he needed a second opinion. Leaving the room, he had to rub his eyes, realizing how the light through the nearby window showed it was nearing night for the world. The base camp's lightning having already automatically engaged. Shift was almost over then, but not quite. Reaching the next room in the large tent building he found his colleague Professor Shera Vassakis. Knocking on a nearby piece of furniture he got her attention from her perusing a binder. "Hey Sherry, I just did some stat analysis and I need a second set of eyes to see that I am not seeing something that doesn't exist. You at a good spot to stop or should I let this off till tomorrow?".
Sherry shook her head. "No, just doublechecking some of the log counts. Why? What did you find?".
With Sherry right behind him he strode back to the board. "I noticed something disturbing from compiling the start and end dates for the translations we have. They all had the same recorded last date of entry. I still don't have a good grasp of their timekeeping, but it is obviously the same date. What is worse is that we pulled automatic service logs and they are the same as the written entries from the entire settlement. A cut off point sometime at noon for the world on the same day. Take a look".
Sherry turned to the corkboard and traced her finger along each of the color-coded stringed pins. A diagram that all connected different texts to the same conclusion. Richard stepped to his desk and grabbed up the logs he had on his data pad. "Here take a look yourself. All the same last date, none with a further time stamp beyond noon like I said".
"Are you sure it's not bias? Maybe the power went out at that time and none of the automatic systems could keep going? Its not like most of the written work have timestamps, just the dates" she asked.
Richard shook his head. "No, some of the facilities we can confirm have backup generators with automatic sequences. They didn't activate though, and I mean all of them. That is not normal. Even if the 13th did shoddy work, I doubt that all would have failed with no discernable physical problems. Especially since they aren't computer controlled in many cases"
"Definitely a mystery" Sherry said at last. Whatever she was going to add on was stopped however when they heard a commotion at the entrance of the tent. Loud clanging and cursing as someone rather enthusiastically tried to shuck off a suit and failing.
"The hell" Richard muttered as he followed Sherry in checking it out.
Before the pair's sight was that of their other colleague Nathan, brandishing a data drive he just pulled from his suit. "I found something; you need to see this now!!". Sherry tried to ask him but he just rushed past to grab an empty terminal. Plugging in the drive the man quickly and frantically pulled something up on display. "I think this is enough to win me the most impressive find of the week hands down".
Richard's angry retort died off as he saw what Nathan had pulled up. A map, a galaxy map. The motherload. They hadn't found one yet, only maps of the colony.
Nathan started babbling. "I think the room I found this in belongs to some sort of stellar cartographer, need to see if the pics i took of the bookshelf match. This was shown up big above some worktable, you can see its incomplete, so someone was actually working on it. But you can see. . .".
Sherry cut in. "The 13th, we need to translate this legend. Does, does this have the location of Earth or Kobol?".
Nathan pointed to a spot on the map, the image zooming in quickly. "Here, I think this is the colony we are on. It's just a bunch of numbers and letters but it roughly matches our own maps if I remember right. But this one, near ours in question, it has a name we can translate. If I remember the dictionary right the closest, we have to it is Gateway. Gateway Colony. Definitely a name loaded with meaning. Did the 13th know we were here? Were they preparing to come visit us?".
"That, that" was the only things Richard could get out. This, this was stunning. Totally unprofessional to conclude, but so tantalizing to consider.
Sherry took a breath for a moment to center herself. "We can write up wild ideas, but we need more information. We should suit up, alert the others. This is now number one priority we have. I can get the call started to the Galactica for support. You get the others here now, if anyone complains then hang them by their belts. We NEED to get on this".
The tent was quickly a mess of activity as the trio set to work, this could be the most pivotal discovery on the planet. And if it led to other things? They would be immortalized forever. The question of just why this colony had been deserted so mysteriously of course was no longer in their minds. Too consumed by their own professional greed and glory seeking. Would they find out eventually? Perhaps. Certainly, needed to find out about the cake.
The Sanitarium
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Harry Potter and the First Task Disaster
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN1: Posting this for an early christmas present. If you like my stuff feel free to donate or to commission work of your own, I got other content on Patreon as well. And if anyone is interested I am running a STALKER-Fallout NV xover quest. Check it out if you want to.
AN2: This was commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle on Patreon.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and related media are the property of their respective owners. I claim nothing that is not my own.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. He was certainly not appreciating the crazy that was his life in being stuck in a tournament where he was being pitted against a dragon. But here he was on the way to the Judge's tent to get to see just which flavor of lorry sized lizard would squish, flame broil, or eat him. Not necessarily in that order. For a school that hated his guts, because to them he was just some new flavor of 'freak'. Snarling in his head, Harry kept angrily heading onward. Did he have a plan? Not really. But he had ideas. Ever since he had seen the fire breathing lizards in the forest with Hagrid, Harry tried his hardest to get an idea of how to survive. Sirius, one of the few adults he could trust was not able to tell him how he could make it through the, the godawful dragons. He had slipped into bed worrying about it, tossing and turning for what seemed like hours. 'Ron you wanker', he had drifted off to sleep thinking that. But that night he had a dream, why couldn't he play to his strengths? One of the things he loved most about the Wizarding World. Now only to see if he could manage it. He could only thank Hermione, and that creepy Prof Moody for what they had done to help him.
Taking a deep breath, he looked at the seemingly innocuous tent before him. There, there was where Harry would need to go. If he wanted to make it, the thought of just quitting entered his mind for a moment before he squashed it. Harry had promised himself to never quit, to not let go of this wonderful new world away from his aunt and uncle and Privet Drive. Entering the tent he saw the other champions. Viktor Krum the Drumstrang champion, someone he would have wanted to talk to about what it was like being a Quidditch champion. The moves he had and what it was like being looked up to for actual reasons. But now he only gave Harry a considering look before looking away cooly. Harry bit back a response, a little voice in the back of his head saying that the older boy had reason to be confident. The Beauxbaton witch Fleur Delacour though. She had called him names and made it clear she looked down on him. Harry could only glare at her in the brief moment their eyes met, the contempt in her eyes burning to him. But nothing he did not already know. Looking at the last champion and his fellow Hogwarts member, Cedric Diggory. They had not interacted much. Harry personally thought that Cedric was an okay person, definitely of a sporting character with that Quidditch match last year. Enough to not leave him out of the fact that they had to face DRAGONS.
"Harry", Cedric gave him a slight nod and smile as he spoke which Harry tried to return. That is until they heard the old man that was the official clear his throat. It was time and Harry's stomach was definitely tying itself in knots at the very last moment.
But as each of the champions prepared to be given a bag see which dragon they would face, they all jerked and looked around at the suddenly FAR TOO CLOSE dragon roars. Any chance of someone asking was cut short as the sound of wildly flapping wings sent wing gusts that blew the tent they were in off their pegs. Harry did not know who was screaming as blood seemed to freeze at the heart stopping sight of a dragon from out of Harry's worst nightmares. The Hungarian Horntail, the most vicious of them all. Thankfully for his life and limb though the beast was not staying over them but instead had to dodge as a flurry of spells and hexes flew at it from the side. But as it flew away it was only then that they noticed the world around them. Fire, it was naught but fire and smoke and screams. And suddenly Harry's blood went from ice cold to boiling as he heard a particular scream. Hermione!!
<><><>
Harry without a thought started doing exactly what he had planned, if not exactly like this. Quickly with a thundering "ACCIO FIREBOLT" with his wand outstretched, Harry put it into action. Precious seconds passed before he managed to somehow catch another sound through the cacophony that was around him. And there it was before him, his broom. Hopping on with a slight wince from the force, Harry immediately sped off. He had to save Herminone!!
It took him a moment to remember where he had heard the scream coming from. The smoke and fire obscured his sight of the stands, but his eyes did not let him down. More precious than any Golden Snitch he sped down to his trapped friend. Hermione was stuck trying to get off the burning stands, having apparently fallen behind everyone else running and not quite willing to jump off the several story scaffolding. Not having thought to grab her wand, if she could actually manage to fight dragon fire inflicted flames at all. But in a hurling start and stop Harry arrived right before her. "Hermione GET ON!!" Harry yelled as he reached out with on hand. Thankfully his still best of friends did not panic and quickly got on behind him. Her arms clasped themselves around him tightly, nose knocking into the back of his head from the force. "Thank you thank you thank you" she near breathlessly rushed out.
Compensating for the second person on the broom Harry didn't say anything as he quickly sped for the sky. The dragons still busy facing spell fire and various transfigurations from the stands or the apparently panicking dragon handlers. For a brief moment, Harry swore he saw a burnt looking Charley running along the ground before he overshot the figure. The castle he finally managed to think, surely the castle was still safe. As quick as he could he arrived near the castle gates, other figures apparently having gotten the same idea and run for their lives here early. Making sure to avoid the panicking stream of people he landed. Finding her feet back on solid ground Hermione stood up but took a moment to let go of Harry as the two hearing another roar looked back to the burning stands. There, they saw what Harry recognized as the Common Welsh rising into the air. Its legs hanging down as it rose slowly. The reason clear as the pair realized it held someone in its claws.
Almost moving before he realized it Harry remounted his broom. "Harry!!" yelled Hermione when she realized what he was doing. "I'm not going to let someone die when I can do something!!" he yelled back. Hermione looking flustered and scared tried to muster a response but was left sputtering when Harry zoomed off. Quickly too becoming a dot as he accelerated as fast as he could back the way he had come.
<><><>
As he returned, Harry noticed more details. Some of the Dragon Keepers were trying to bring the dragon's down, joined by a few brave witches and wizards. But they were not exactly having a great time of it. Especially as Harry noticed something he had not before. The Dark Mark, and more spell fire in areas where the Dragons weren't. His heart seemingly clenched more then it already was, but Harry shook himself. One thing at a time, especially as the dragon he realized he was barreling towards had noticed him too. Giving yet another distinctive roar it let go of what was in its talons. He dived even as he finally noticed who he was racing towards. Cho Chang. The girl screaming as she fell towards the ground. Seemingly diving even faster, ash and smoke billowing into his face to burn his eyes. Harry crept closer and closer. And finally reached the girl he was not in any mind to remember he had a crush on.
What he did have in mind however was to drove under and behind her. His eyes noticing as he past the almost confused look in Cho's face before she slammed into Harry. It wasn't worse than taking a Bludger if much more awkward as he was trying to catch a person. His free hand was for a moment joined by his steering hand as he tried to get a firm grip. A pinwheeling arm managed to clip the top of his head, thankfully not knocking his glasses off before he found himself with Cho Chang in his lap. A face streaked with black teardrops from the soot and ash. Harry barely noticed the snot and spit before her face impacted his shoulder and a vice grip was on his robes. But he had his measure and quickly sped off again away to the castle. Reaching the same spot he dropped off Hermione at he noticed that she was still there looking frenzied. Thankfully she was more on the ball then Harry as when they touched down Hermione raced over and helped him get Cho Chang back on her own two legs. Hermione now the target of the frightened girl as they stumbled backwards.
"Shhh, shhh. Calm, calm. Your safe now. Ohh for a pepper upper potion" Hermione muttered as she tried to stroke the frantic witch's back. Taking a moment to take a breath before having to spit out a goblet of black mucus, Harry looked back again to the disaster before them. The dragons were still going wild, and worryingly he did not see as many attempts to fight the dragons as he did before. Sure it looked like the Welsh Green was down, not being in the sky. But that left a pyromaniac Chinese Fireball alongside the clashing pair of the Swedish Short Snout and Hungarian Horntail. Looking back on the ground it was perhaps worrying that there were not as many people running towards them as there were before. Harry thinking about what might be happening there turned to check on those he had already rescued.
Hermione looking up at the same time narrowed her eyes. A dumbstruck look on her eyes as he seemed to cotton on to what Harry was just about to do. Giving a nervous burst of laughter, Harry almost couldn't believe it himself as he turned around and sped off yet again. Curse the stories about him being a hero, he was living it now!
<><><>
Getting closer once again, Harry kept his eyes out. Trying to get any clues about what was happening. Then he noticed that the Fireball was seemingly too intent on trying to burn something out in the stands. At least before it had to pitch away from the midair clashing Horntail and Short Snout. With all of them seemingly distracted with each other Harry zoomed over to where he noticed the Fireball attacking. There, his eyes spied out someone attempting to do something, anything to put out some of the flames. Someone stuck in the middle of them in the collapsing wooden stands. Arms wildly lashing out with spells to seemingly little effect. Carefully flying over he noticed someone in his own year in there. It took a moment for him to realize who it was Susan Bones. Not someone he knew will but that didn't matter. They were trapped and he was in a place to save them.
Carefully descending, mindful of both above and below he arrived with a woosh of displacing smoke. "Hey, get on!" he yelled out to the startled witch. She nodded and quickly got on behind him, one arm around him and the other on her wand. It would turn out it would be needed as they had to duck out of the way of a falling beam. The course just barely knocked off by Susan's spell even as she hissed from the scorching heat of it passing. Still the pair sped out into the air. Once again Harry making a beeline for where he had been before.
"Than.. Thank you" Susan managed to get out before giving a choking cough. Harry tried to think of something to do or say but she managed to get her breath back after hacking up something from her throat. "Thank you Harry. You saved my life" she said. Harry tried to nod before looking forward again.
"I did what I could" he yelled back as they neared where he intended to drop her off. They reached the ground to see Hermione and a now calmed down Cho Chang step over to them. The two girls reaching out to take Susan's hands into theirs as they stumble stepped back a few feet. As they started speaking to each other though, Harry again looked back. It was not looking good. He didn't see anyone else coming towards them. In the air it seemed that the Fireball had managed to be caught by a rope and was crashing into the ground with a titanic roar. But elsewhere it looked like the Horntail was winning its fight with the Short Snout.
His view was interrupted as he was spun around to find a clinging Susan Bones in his arms, her face looking up awestruck at him. "You saved me, thank you" she managed to say before stepping back.
Hermione and Cho both stepped forward again alternating looks between Harry and the sight back at what was left at the stands. On that thought though Harry turned to Susan. "Do you think anyone else is still there?" he asked.
Susan sucked in a breath as she tried to think. She turned to face Harry again and nodded. "I remember running away with Daphne before we got separated. If she isn't here she might still be at the stands".
"Who?" blurted out Harry before Susan rushed to answer. "Blonde hair, blue eyes. Posh princess looks and in Slytherin. That's her. Hurry! I think we were some of the last to get off the stands". Nodding, Harry once again got on his broom for the fourth time. Hopefully this would be the last person he needed to get out. He wiped some of the sooty sweat from his forehead before rising back into the air.
<><><>
Once again nearly at the stands Harry saw that worryingly it looked like only the Horntail was still loose in the air. The dragon badly burnt and bloodied, but still up and angry. And looking in his direction. Thinking fast as the suddenly oncoming aerial dozer rushed for him, Harry decided to pull a loop de loop. The move making blood rush into his head as he tried to get around and confuse the dragon. It snapped its head back and forth, wings flaring to try to follow him even as it roared in as much pain as it did anger. Harry could only wonder for a moment if dragon blood was acidic as it streaked off the scaled lizard's body. Trying again to do something to get it off of him, he thought about using a spell before throwing that thought away. He didn't think anything he knew would do anything. Instead, as he noticed how much the dragon hitched and plummeted during a few of its wing strokes, he had a wild idea.
For a brief moment, he gave a prayer. He didn't know how to give a good one, but he tried. The plan was utterly bonkers, but he didn't have another one. Pushing downward he drove himself like an arrow right past the dragon before flaring off level to the ground. The dragon screamed out its bloodthirst as it followed the fleeing prey. Harry zipped and zagged, hoping if it was trying to breath fire that it would miss. Something that turned out to be needed as he felt the onrush of hot air before he kept zigging to avoid a burst of dragon fire. Chancing a look back, Harry saw that the dragon was still trying to get him. And managing to keep a bit too close despite a bloodied set of wings. Putting as much speed on as he could he managed to zoom back around, nearly blacking out from the force of doing a 180 to burst past the dragon attempting to aerobrake itself.
Managing to get speed he used his head start to head to the stands. Eyes streaking across the stands he noticed a moving figure. One that was trying to outrun a slowly collapsing wall that was part of the stands. Charging down to prepared for the impact as he stretched out a arm. Thankfully for Harry, his high speed maneuver did not result in his arm dislocating itself. That did not mean that his still fast impact with a girl his size did not leave it feeling as weak as a noodle. Thankfully not the noodle that Lockhart had left him in once before. But he managed it as the girl, who with a brief look seemed to be Daphne as was described to him, quickly threw her arms around him. Eyes wild and almost unseeing in panic and shock. But not in danger of falling off too easily.
Orienting himself Harry made a move to reach where he had dropped everyone off before. Daphne not saying anything as they moved only to start screaming suddenly. Startled Harry turned his head to notice that yes, the Horntail was not giving up. Its speed slowed down by wounds was a match for his with the weight of too people on the Firebolt. Thinking quickly yet again however, Harry had a spark of an idea. Screaming "Hold On!!!" he decided to do it. Heading for the Hogwart's lake, Harry did a low pass. Water streaked to the sides from the force of his passage and then even more as the dragon skimmed the lake before flapping up to keep following the puny morsels in its sight. That was before of course the reason that Harry had his harebrained idea. A sudden burst of the surface of the lake revealed that the Giant Squid was still in the lake. The dare he say it Kraken emerged with all tendrils out and flailing to grasp the scaly thing that dared to be near its waters. Harry looking back had a good look at a toothed maw as the dragon was wrenched back into it. The wounded dragon struggled, fought hard roaring and breathing fire. But it was too hurt, and without leverage as the Giant Squid heaved. Its two main tentacles curling and flailing at the dragon's head as its arms wrapped around the limbs to grasp its prey. The dragon went tail first in a seemingly impossible manner into the gullet of the greater beast. Harry turned away, not wanting to see what was happening anymore as he streaked away.
The pair landed again at the stretch before the castle gates. There Harry at last set down his broom with suddenly wobbly legs as he stumbled with Daphne to the trio he had already rescued. Hugging as much as tackling he propelled the group back a step or too as he suddenly felt exhausted. The adrenaline that had kept him going was leaving. The minutes that had seemed like hours going away. Especially as the laughing, crying, screaming, pile up noticed someone standing by them. Looking up they saw the astoundingly near beardless figure of Dumbledore before them, robes not quite as scorched as his lost beard. Eyes crinkling in amusement and still tensed determination. "Well children, we best be going in shouldn't we?" he said almost merrily as he gestured alongside his words. Something the children all agreed to as they followed along the headmaster's wake. All of the young witches grateful to be alive, all thanks to one particular boy. No a Wizard, a Man. But that is a part for another day.
<><><>
"And then we all entered through the gates of Hogwarts. Tired, relieved, joyful. We had made it through something that none of us would ever forget. Because it would be from there that we all started growing closer together. That children is the story of how I met your mothers" came the calm tones of a now full grown Harry Potter.
Harry was sat down near a roaring fireplace, almost fifteen years after the rampage of the dragons at the first task. All this storytelling to four children, each one taking after their mothers. All looking awestruck as their father finished his tale before Christmas. The one they had begged out of him before they had to go to sleep. As each child started speaking over each other to get their question answered they all had to stop however. With a rather audible opening, a pair of the women in Harry Potter's life appeared. The apples of his eyes looked in. Smiles on their face as they took in the scene. One the softly smiling face of Hermione Potter nee Granger, flanking her on the other side of the open door was Susan Potter nee Bones who smiled bemusedly at everyone inside. Both having obviously heard something of what Harry had just told them.
"Well children, did that seem like a good story to hear before you all go to bed?" asked Hermione.
To which Susan added, "Oh, I don't find it something bad to hear. A real story of a bonafide hero is never a bad thing to hear after all".
"Oh, just wanting the children to know a bit about their old dad and their mother's early life in Hogwarts. Gotta have something to tell about when they see the Lake afterall" Harry airily spoke out. Something that prompted giggles from the women and more pitched words from the children.
"Now, now. Storytime is over. You want to all wake up nice and bright for when Santa has delivered his presents right?" Hermione said happily to the groaning of the children.
Susan entered another step, hands waving as she gestured out. "Shush, shush. Move along children, you have to wash up before you all head to bed. Come along".
With the typical moaning and groaning of the young the pod of younglings stepped out, Hermione helping propel them on as they passed the doorway. Closing up was Harry as he moved to join Hermoine with Susan along. This was not a time they would exchange for any other. Not as they planned to join the other two upstairs after settling all the children to bed. A good life indeed.
AN2: This was commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle on Patreon.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and related media are the property of their respective owners. I claim nothing that is not my own.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. He was certainly not appreciating the crazy that was his life in being stuck in a tournament where he was being pitted against a dragon. But here he was on the way to the Judge's tent to get to see just which flavor of lorry sized lizard would squish, flame broil, or eat him. Not necessarily in that order. For a school that hated his guts, because to them he was just some new flavor of 'freak'. Snarling in his head, Harry kept angrily heading onward. Did he have a plan? Not really. But he had ideas. Ever since he had seen the fire breathing lizards in the forest with Hagrid, Harry tried his hardest to get an idea of how to survive. Sirius, one of the few adults he could trust was not able to tell him how he could make it through the, the godawful dragons. He had slipped into bed worrying about it, tossing and turning for what seemed like hours. 'Ron you wanker', he had drifted off to sleep thinking that. But that night he had a dream, why couldn't he play to his strengths? One of the things he loved most about the Wizarding World. Now only to see if he could manage it. He could only thank Hermione, and that creepy Prof Moody for what they had done to help him.
Taking a deep breath, he looked at the seemingly innocuous tent before him. There, there was where Harry would need to go. If he wanted to make it, the thought of just quitting entered his mind for a moment before he squashed it. Harry had promised himself to never quit, to not let go of this wonderful new world away from his aunt and uncle and Privet Drive. Entering the tent he saw the other champions. Viktor Krum the Drumstrang champion, someone he would have wanted to talk to about what it was like being a Quidditch champion. The moves he had and what it was like being looked up to for actual reasons. But now he only gave Harry a considering look before looking away cooly. Harry bit back a response, a little voice in the back of his head saying that the older boy had reason to be confident. The Beauxbaton witch Fleur Delacour though. She had called him names and made it clear she looked down on him. Harry could only glare at her in the brief moment their eyes met, the contempt in her eyes burning to him. But nothing he did not already know. Looking at the last champion and his fellow Hogwarts member, Cedric Diggory. They had not interacted much. Harry personally thought that Cedric was an okay person, definitely of a sporting character with that Quidditch match last year. Enough to not leave him out of the fact that they had to face DRAGONS.
"Harry", Cedric gave him a slight nod and smile as he spoke which Harry tried to return. That is until they heard the old man that was the official clear his throat. It was time and Harry's stomach was definitely tying itself in knots at the very last moment.
But as each of the champions prepared to be given a bag see which dragon they would face, they all jerked and looked around at the suddenly FAR TOO CLOSE dragon roars. Any chance of someone asking was cut short as the sound of wildly flapping wings sent wing gusts that blew the tent they were in off their pegs. Harry did not know who was screaming as blood seemed to freeze at the heart stopping sight of a dragon from out of Harry's worst nightmares. The Hungarian Horntail, the most vicious of them all. Thankfully for his life and limb though the beast was not staying over them but instead had to dodge as a flurry of spells and hexes flew at it from the side. But as it flew away it was only then that they noticed the world around them. Fire, it was naught but fire and smoke and screams. And suddenly Harry's blood went from ice cold to boiling as he heard a particular scream. Hermione!!
<><><>
Harry without a thought started doing exactly what he had planned, if not exactly like this. Quickly with a thundering "ACCIO FIREBOLT" with his wand outstretched, Harry put it into action. Precious seconds passed before he managed to somehow catch another sound through the cacophony that was around him. And there it was before him, his broom. Hopping on with a slight wince from the force, Harry immediately sped off. He had to save Herminone!!
It took him a moment to remember where he had heard the scream coming from. The smoke and fire obscured his sight of the stands, but his eyes did not let him down. More precious than any Golden Snitch he sped down to his trapped friend. Hermione was stuck trying to get off the burning stands, having apparently fallen behind everyone else running and not quite willing to jump off the several story scaffolding. Not having thought to grab her wand, if she could actually manage to fight dragon fire inflicted flames at all. But in a hurling start and stop Harry arrived right before her. "Hermione GET ON!!" Harry yelled as he reached out with on hand. Thankfully his still best of friends did not panic and quickly got on behind him. Her arms clasped themselves around him tightly, nose knocking into the back of his head from the force. "Thank you thank you thank you" she near breathlessly rushed out.
Compensating for the second person on the broom Harry didn't say anything as he quickly sped for the sky. The dragons still busy facing spell fire and various transfigurations from the stands or the apparently panicking dragon handlers. For a brief moment, Harry swore he saw a burnt looking Charley running along the ground before he overshot the figure. The castle he finally managed to think, surely the castle was still safe. As quick as he could he arrived near the castle gates, other figures apparently having gotten the same idea and run for their lives here early. Making sure to avoid the panicking stream of people he landed. Finding her feet back on solid ground Hermione stood up but took a moment to let go of Harry as the two hearing another roar looked back to the burning stands. There, they saw what Harry recognized as the Common Welsh rising into the air. Its legs hanging down as it rose slowly. The reason clear as the pair realized it held someone in its claws.
Almost moving before he realized it Harry remounted his broom. "Harry!!" yelled Hermione when she realized what he was doing. "I'm not going to let someone die when I can do something!!" he yelled back. Hermione looking flustered and scared tried to muster a response but was left sputtering when Harry zoomed off. Quickly too becoming a dot as he accelerated as fast as he could back the way he had come.
<><><>
As he returned, Harry noticed more details. Some of the Dragon Keepers were trying to bring the dragon's down, joined by a few brave witches and wizards. But they were not exactly having a great time of it. Especially as Harry noticed something he had not before. The Dark Mark, and more spell fire in areas where the Dragons weren't. His heart seemingly clenched more then it already was, but Harry shook himself. One thing at a time, especially as the dragon he realized he was barreling towards had noticed him too. Giving yet another distinctive roar it let go of what was in its talons. He dived even as he finally noticed who he was racing towards. Cho Chang. The girl screaming as she fell towards the ground. Seemingly diving even faster, ash and smoke billowing into his face to burn his eyes. Harry crept closer and closer. And finally reached the girl he was not in any mind to remember he had a crush on.
What he did have in mind however was to drove under and behind her. His eyes noticing as he past the almost confused look in Cho's face before she slammed into Harry. It wasn't worse than taking a Bludger if much more awkward as he was trying to catch a person. His free hand was for a moment joined by his steering hand as he tried to get a firm grip. A pinwheeling arm managed to clip the top of his head, thankfully not knocking his glasses off before he found himself with Cho Chang in his lap. A face streaked with black teardrops from the soot and ash. Harry barely noticed the snot and spit before her face impacted his shoulder and a vice grip was on his robes. But he had his measure and quickly sped off again away to the castle. Reaching the same spot he dropped off Hermione at he noticed that she was still there looking frenzied. Thankfully she was more on the ball then Harry as when they touched down Hermione raced over and helped him get Cho Chang back on her own two legs. Hermione now the target of the frightened girl as they stumbled backwards.
"Shhh, shhh. Calm, calm. Your safe now. Ohh for a pepper upper potion" Hermione muttered as she tried to stroke the frantic witch's back. Taking a moment to take a breath before having to spit out a goblet of black mucus, Harry looked back again to the disaster before them. The dragons were still going wild, and worryingly he did not see as many attempts to fight the dragons as he did before. Sure it looked like the Welsh Green was down, not being in the sky. But that left a pyromaniac Chinese Fireball alongside the clashing pair of the Swedish Short Snout and Hungarian Horntail. Looking back on the ground it was perhaps worrying that there were not as many people running towards them as there were before. Harry thinking about what might be happening there turned to check on those he had already rescued.
Hermione looking up at the same time narrowed her eyes. A dumbstruck look on her eyes as he seemed to cotton on to what Harry was just about to do. Giving a nervous burst of laughter, Harry almost couldn't believe it himself as he turned around and sped off yet again. Curse the stories about him being a hero, he was living it now!
<><><>
Getting closer once again, Harry kept his eyes out. Trying to get any clues about what was happening. Then he noticed that the Fireball was seemingly too intent on trying to burn something out in the stands. At least before it had to pitch away from the midair clashing Horntail and Short Snout. With all of them seemingly distracted with each other Harry zoomed over to where he noticed the Fireball attacking. There, his eyes spied out someone attempting to do something, anything to put out some of the flames. Someone stuck in the middle of them in the collapsing wooden stands. Arms wildly lashing out with spells to seemingly little effect. Carefully flying over he noticed someone in his own year in there. It took a moment for him to realize who it was Susan Bones. Not someone he knew will but that didn't matter. They were trapped and he was in a place to save them.
Carefully descending, mindful of both above and below he arrived with a woosh of displacing smoke. "Hey, get on!" he yelled out to the startled witch. She nodded and quickly got on behind him, one arm around him and the other on her wand. It would turn out it would be needed as they had to duck out of the way of a falling beam. The course just barely knocked off by Susan's spell even as she hissed from the scorching heat of it passing. Still the pair sped out into the air. Once again Harry making a beeline for where he had been before.
"Than.. Thank you" Susan managed to get out before giving a choking cough. Harry tried to think of something to do or say but she managed to get her breath back after hacking up something from her throat. "Thank you Harry. You saved my life" she said. Harry tried to nod before looking forward again.
"I did what I could" he yelled back as they neared where he intended to drop her off. They reached the ground to see Hermione and a now calmed down Cho Chang step over to them. The two girls reaching out to take Susan's hands into theirs as they stumble stepped back a few feet. As they started speaking to each other though, Harry again looked back. It was not looking good. He didn't see anyone else coming towards them. In the air it seemed that the Fireball had managed to be caught by a rope and was crashing into the ground with a titanic roar. But elsewhere it looked like the Horntail was winning its fight with the Short Snout.
His view was interrupted as he was spun around to find a clinging Susan Bones in his arms, her face looking up awestruck at him. "You saved me, thank you" she managed to say before stepping back.
Hermione and Cho both stepped forward again alternating looks between Harry and the sight back at what was left at the stands. On that thought though Harry turned to Susan. "Do you think anyone else is still there?" he asked.
Susan sucked in a breath as she tried to think. She turned to face Harry again and nodded. "I remember running away with Daphne before we got separated. If she isn't here she might still be at the stands".
"Who?" blurted out Harry before Susan rushed to answer. "Blonde hair, blue eyes. Posh princess looks and in Slytherin. That's her. Hurry! I think we were some of the last to get off the stands". Nodding, Harry once again got on his broom for the fourth time. Hopefully this would be the last person he needed to get out. He wiped some of the sooty sweat from his forehead before rising back into the air.
<><><>
Once again nearly at the stands Harry saw that worryingly it looked like only the Horntail was still loose in the air. The dragon badly burnt and bloodied, but still up and angry. And looking in his direction. Thinking fast as the suddenly oncoming aerial dozer rushed for him, Harry decided to pull a loop de loop. The move making blood rush into his head as he tried to get around and confuse the dragon. It snapped its head back and forth, wings flaring to try to follow him even as it roared in as much pain as it did anger. Harry could only wonder for a moment if dragon blood was acidic as it streaked off the scaled lizard's body. Trying again to do something to get it off of him, he thought about using a spell before throwing that thought away. He didn't think anything he knew would do anything. Instead, as he noticed how much the dragon hitched and plummeted during a few of its wing strokes, he had a wild idea.
For a brief moment, he gave a prayer. He didn't know how to give a good one, but he tried. The plan was utterly bonkers, but he didn't have another one. Pushing downward he drove himself like an arrow right past the dragon before flaring off level to the ground. The dragon screamed out its bloodthirst as it followed the fleeing prey. Harry zipped and zagged, hoping if it was trying to breath fire that it would miss. Something that turned out to be needed as he felt the onrush of hot air before he kept zigging to avoid a burst of dragon fire. Chancing a look back, Harry saw that the dragon was still trying to get him. And managing to keep a bit too close despite a bloodied set of wings. Putting as much speed on as he could he managed to zoom back around, nearly blacking out from the force of doing a 180 to burst past the dragon attempting to aerobrake itself.
Managing to get speed he used his head start to head to the stands. Eyes streaking across the stands he noticed a moving figure. One that was trying to outrun a slowly collapsing wall that was part of the stands. Charging down to prepared for the impact as he stretched out a arm. Thankfully for Harry, his high speed maneuver did not result in his arm dislocating itself. That did not mean that his still fast impact with a girl his size did not leave it feeling as weak as a noodle. Thankfully not the noodle that Lockhart had left him in once before. But he managed it as the girl, who with a brief look seemed to be Daphne as was described to him, quickly threw her arms around him. Eyes wild and almost unseeing in panic and shock. But not in danger of falling off too easily.
Orienting himself Harry made a move to reach where he had dropped everyone off before. Daphne not saying anything as they moved only to start screaming suddenly. Startled Harry turned his head to notice that yes, the Horntail was not giving up. Its speed slowed down by wounds was a match for his with the weight of too people on the Firebolt. Thinking quickly yet again however, Harry had a spark of an idea. Screaming "Hold On!!!" he decided to do it. Heading for the Hogwart's lake, Harry did a low pass. Water streaked to the sides from the force of his passage and then even more as the dragon skimmed the lake before flapping up to keep following the puny morsels in its sight. That was before of course the reason that Harry had his harebrained idea. A sudden burst of the surface of the lake revealed that the Giant Squid was still in the lake. The dare he say it Kraken emerged with all tendrils out and flailing to grasp the scaly thing that dared to be near its waters. Harry looking back had a good look at a toothed maw as the dragon was wrenched back into it. The wounded dragon struggled, fought hard roaring and breathing fire. But it was too hurt, and without leverage as the Giant Squid heaved. Its two main tentacles curling and flailing at the dragon's head as its arms wrapped around the limbs to grasp its prey. The dragon went tail first in a seemingly impossible manner into the gullet of the greater beast. Harry turned away, not wanting to see what was happening anymore as he streaked away.
The pair landed again at the stretch before the castle gates. There Harry at last set down his broom with suddenly wobbly legs as he stumbled with Daphne to the trio he had already rescued. Hugging as much as tackling he propelled the group back a step or too as he suddenly felt exhausted. The adrenaline that had kept him going was leaving. The minutes that had seemed like hours going away. Especially as the laughing, crying, screaming, pile up noticed someone standing by them. Looking up they saw the astoundingly near beardless figure of Dumbledore before them, robes not quite as scorched as his lost beard. Eyes crinkling in amusement and still tensed determination. "Well children, we best be going in shouldn't we?" he said almost merrily as he gestured alongside his words. Something the children all agreed to as they followed along the headmaster's wake. All of the young witches grateful to be alive, all thanks to one particular boy. No a Wizard, a Man. But that is a part for another day.
<><><>
"And then we all entered through the gates of Hogwarts. Tired, relieved, joyful. We had made it through something that none of us would ever forget. Because it would be from there that we all started growing closer together. That children is the story of how I met your mothers" came the calm tones of a now full grown Harry Potter.
Harry was sat down near a roaring fireplace, almost fifteen years after the rampage of the dragons at the first task. All this storytelling to four children, each one taking after their mothers. All looking awestruck as their father finished his tale before Christmas. The one they had begged out of him before they had to go to sleep. As each child started speaking over each other to get their question answered they all had to stop however. With a rather audible opening, a pair of the women in Harry Potter's life appeared. The apples of his eyes looked in. Smiles on their face as they took in the scene. One the softly smiling face of Hermione Potter nee Granger, flanking her on the other side of the open door was Susan Potter nee Bones who smiled bemusedly at everyone inside. Both having obviously heard something of what Harry had just told them.
"Well children, did that seem like a good story to hear before you all go to bed?" asked Hermione.
To which Susan added, "Oh, I don't find it something bad to hear. A real story of a bonafide hero is never a bad thing to hear after all".
"Oh, just wanting the children to know a bit about their old dad and their mother's early life in Hogwarts. Gotta have something to tell about when they see the Lake afterall" Harry airily spoke out. Something that prompted giggles from the women and more pitched words from the children.
"Now, now. Storytime is over. You want to all wake up nice and bright for when Santa has delivered his presents right?" Hermione said happily to the groaning of the children.
Susan entered another step, hands waving as she gestured out. "Shush, shush. Move along children, you have to wash up before you all head to bed. Come along".
With the typical moaning and groaning of the young the pod of younglings stepped out, Hermione helping propel them on as they passed the doorway. Closing up was Harry as he moved to join Hermoine with Susan along. This was not a time they would exchange for any other. Not as they planned to join the other two upstairs after settling all the children to bed. A good life indeed.
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BSG: Discovery- Finding Paradise
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN: Another continuation for this verse, the crew of the Galactica is in orbit of the planet of Gateway and are left yet again with mysteries and questions. Hope everyone will have or has had a good new years and that the next year is better then the last. If you like what you see and want to commission something of your own or just to support me visit my Patreon please
"Well ain't she a beauty? I can certainly see why people wanted to settle down here" remarked sarcastically by one Zak Adama as he flew holding loop de loops over the town he was surveying. The ruins of one at least, nature had reclaimed what it considered its due. Debris filled lots of what were once wooden structures, weathered concrete blocks with trees growing out of parts, asphalt roads long overrun and turned into animal paths. Even with only a bird's eye view it was a nice-looking place, if ominous in that no sign of continued human habitation was present.
"Oh, come off it, it's a new world! One that looks nicely habitable, and none of the probes brought back anything nasty so we should be fine" came the voice of Sammy, Callsign Bookie. The girl who ran most of the betting pools for the pilots.
"Yeah, but do you want to be the one to deal with the whole "But we da 13 Colonies" thing if we establish a new one like this. Some of the bigger belt communities are problem enough. A whole planet though?" he remarked.
"Hey, did you have to bring up politics. Running bets like that ruins my style. Sides, they might bring back the old homestead acts. Might be able to snag some prime land for retirement". She remarked.
Zak thought it over for a second then shook his head. "Sounds nice, but probably be after me if it does".
Bookie shrugged, "Don't think your wrong there. Oh hey, that spot looks good. Vector 40, that patch of off-color grass".
Looking down he found said nice landing pad. Looked like the foundations of some expansive rural mansion, now the only presence left was that the grass couldn't grow over it as well as it could the rest of the area. Nodding at each other, they began descent procedures. Soon enough everyone could feel the thump of the gears on earth throughout their entire body. Throttling down the engines Zak began the shutdown sequence. They weren't planning on getting off the ground quickly.
Hitting the switch for the intercom Zak decided to give a farewell address. "Alright docs and co, we are down. I don't know about you but I'm staying in here. Just cause they said the air is fine doesn't mean I'm leaving. Knock on the door if you need me and the radio don't work, or just come running back screaming. That will do".
"Yeah, yeah. Just don't leave until we get back. I don't want to be stranded here where it looks like paradise for a Gemenonese" came from the Marine escort for the eggheads.
"Don't get eaten by the wildlife then" Zak retorted before shutting off the intercom. Turning to Bookie, he asked a question. "Got any cards?".
"You can bet I do" she replied.
<><><>
One Rick Sebastian, a simple PFC in the Marine corp was stuck in one of the most hated duties. VIP escort duty. And one of the worst forms, for a bunch of nerds on expedition. "They said you could go see new worlds. They said it would be exotic. If I wanted to see more of Gemnon then I would have stayed on the farm" he could be heard complaining out loud on the group channel on low volume.
The rest of the group politely ignored the bitching as they attempted to use the bulky survey instruments in their clumsy hazmat suits. Lots of antennae on boxy forms along with a few different containment vessels for plant and geological samples.
The marine continued to walk a rough perimeter patrol, rifle technically held ready if loosely. He wasn't happy that the one shady spot they chose to set up at was for some deep deep old growth. The kind where the trees are tall enough and the canopies dense enough to block out almost all the light to the ground. Made things difficult to walk regardless thanks to the carpet of roots and particularly stubborn shrubs. Weren't any good wide clearings, that's for sure.
"Hmm, possible artificial signs of planting here and there. We are going to need sampling equipment for the dendrochronology tests later. Not that it matters much without the meteorology data for the region. But it will be a rough number" remarked one of the scientists to a colleague.
"Hmm Mr. Sebastian? Going to need your help for something". Said another of the talking heads.
"Yeah? What is it?" he replied over the comms.
"Could I trouble you to take this marking tape out, just find a few random trees to mark for sampling later. Just don't make them too close to each other, about twenty will do for the most basic survey".
Rick wanted to say no, but that would just leave him pacing in a circle for more then an hour. "Fine, I'll do it".
"Thank you. Here is the roll, easy to see orange and silver. Just don't get lost. I don't think any of us are qualified for a rescue attempt". Rick snorted at that. But he took the thick roll of tape and left.
He slung the tape into his quick take sack and started circling around to see a good spot to enter the woods. Picking one he started making his way in, the world cast in shadows with the little light to filter its way through the canopy. Enough that he gladly turned on his helmet's light to be able to see his own feet. At the same time though he was getting spooked by the contrast of light from his flashlight and the darker bits outside. There wasn't anything like dust to get hung in the cone of light, but the sound of his heartbeat inside the suit did not help his sense of unease. He wished these plastic suits had better insulation, he was way too chilly and clammy.
Constantly snapping his sight from his feet to in front of him he at times could have sworn he caught something in the corner of his eyes. But a quick glance revealed nothing but odd knots in the wood or fallen branches. Even the occasional log. Must have been a trick of the light he admitted to himself. Lot of beams of life coming and going as the wind blew through the tops.
It took him a second to realize something else. Lots of plants so far, mushrooms, and a few old, weathered berries here and there. But no animals. A bit weird. If someone put trees just like those in the colonies, then where were the animals? Birds, deer, anything? Did they all migrate already, it seemed close to winter from the looks of the grass and leaves he spotted on the way here. Stopping every once in a while, to hack a piece of tape onto a tree, he was otherwise alone to his own thoughts. And the Marine corp wasn't good about having its folk with time to themselves alone. Gingerly holding his gun again he kept walking.
But as he took another step, he thought he heard something, Rick spun around with rifle raised. Only to find something strange. He was treated to the incongruous site of a bike. A child's bike from the size of it, now overgrown. Whoever had left it here never came back, and the tree it was chained to had grown around and through it to bring the thing half a meter above the ground. What metal was left exposed showed that at one time it was painted red and white. He wondered what story this bike had to tell. Shaking off the obviously imagined child's laugh he kept walking away. Tilting his head down revealed that there was an actual path he was following without realizing, some sort of disused game path? Looking back the way he came he definitely saw more of it. Turning back forward he kept going, was he on to something? The light seemed to be growing stronger, the trees less grown here. Sure, enough as he kept walking he found himself on the other side of the forest. Looking onto some old, abandoned village.
Squat wooden buildings the same as any in areas without much industry for prefabs. One story things scattered almost haphazardly on a now gone dirt path. A big farm vehicle or truck scattered here and there in lots or garage driveways. Looked like a small cluster of residential, probably the farms further away. Keeping on emerging from the forest he looked once more over the place. Grass had overgrown some of the areas, the windows almost covered by the waves of gently blown vegetation. Old wire fences a host to any number of vines and the wooden ones long fallen over. For all the life around, he couldn't call it anything but desolate. If it was in good condition, he knew his parents would have loved to be here, especially if the land grants were large and the soil good. A nice bit of rural farmland for his Lord Bothering parents to reside on with yet another batch of younger siblings getting their own patches of dirt when they grew up. But the shadows in the structures almost seemed to mock him, there is no more human life here. His mind seemed to conjure up that thought. Shaking his head again, he turned back to head into the forest. He didn't want to be alone right now, best get back to the others. Even if it was through the foreboding darkness.
<><><>
It was later in the week when Zak was told to actually head into one of the abandoned towns they had overflown earlier. Enough time had passed that they knew that the place was not completely lifeless in terms of anything not green and stuck in the ground. Which is why he took pleasure in what he was about to say as the craft settled down.
"Make sure to pack your flare guns and rifles kids, cause we saw bears down there. Who imports bears to their new colonies?". Watching the chaos through the camera Zak freely had a shit eating grin on his face. He wasn't lying, it was just that the bears had all left as soon as he had zoomed by them and were not coming back. Well for now at least. Seriously though, bears. But anyway, this time he had to actually leave the Raptor. The air was definitely safe they tested and nothing disease wise so far. Which meant an extended stay. Which meant huffing boxes around to set it up.
Having set down near the edge of town they were heading to near one of the major town hubs to camp at. The chosen spot, near some large building, looked like one of the center points of the community judging by the roads. A whole bunch of different uniform blocks of housing leading to this communal building with alot of yard space around it. The tower the big brick thing had was topped by some big icon on it. A large vertical line with a horizontal line two thirds of the way up it. That couldn't have been real gold, right? It was shiny, but would someone have gone to the effort to do that? Well temples certainly had had stranger things on em. Setting down the latest crate and finding that Bookie had gone off with the motor sled for something else without him, he decided that a break was in order.
The courtyard he was in had a tall brick and plaster enclosing wall. And he remembered seeing strange things on it as he passed through the doorway. With a better look he saw them. It looked like someone had created some sort of mural on the side out of tiny tiles, several of them. A mosaic, was that what they were called? Ones done in black, white, and various shades of gray. The one he stopped in front of depicted a person with long misshapen hair and full chin hair in robes alongside a laurel crown? Only it was made of thorns, both in tile and eerily with actual thorny plants. They had somehow gone through holes or cracks in the wall to almost perfectly outline the tiles beneath. It can't have been cultivated. Right? But there was only so much vegetation around the place, a bit odd to have it be so concentrated. Trying to look into the eyes of the figure Zak had to turn away for a moment. Something seemed to make him have to turn away. Looking back for a moment he had to wonder, why was to trying to match eyes with someone looking up?
Shaking his head, Zak kept walking along the length of the mural filled wall. One of them appeared to be out of a scene from Gemenon, one of the places even the Gemenonese consider out in the sticks. Someone born in an animal barn, and people praying to the baby? Cows and sheep were around the place seemingly providing warmth to the child in the winter judging by the snow. And winged figures watching downward? Depictions of their Lords? Whoever these figures were they were obviously important. Hearing a trundling sound he turned to look over his shoulder, yep that was Bookie in the distance with another load to move. He spared one last glance back to the mural. Hmm did the figures have that impression of a circle around their heads before? Must have been because of the contrast, all black and white made it hard to see some details. Better get back to work, not wondering over strange pieces of art. Would get the weird malaise he felt to go away with some sweat. Better if he was in the sky but beggars can't be choosers.
"Well ain't she a beauty? I can certainly see why people wanted to settle down here" remarked sarcastically by one Zak Adama as he flew holding loop de loops over the town he was surveying. The ruins of one at least, nature had reclaimed what it considered its due. Debris filled lots of what were once wooden structures, weathered concrete blocks with trees growing out of parts, asphalt roads long overrun and turned into animal paths. Even with only a bird's eye view it was a nice-looking place, if ominous in that no sign of continued human habitation was present.
"Oh, come off it, it's a new world! One that looks nicely habitable, and none of the probes brought back anything nasty so we should be fine" came the voice of Sammy, Callsign Bookie. The girl who ran most of the betting pools for the pilots.
"Yeah, but do you want to be the one to deal with the whole "But we da 13 Colonies" thing if we establish a new one like this. Some of the bigger belt communities are problem enough. A whole planet though?" he remarked.
"Hey, did you have to bring up politics. Running bets like that ruins my style. Sides, they might bring back the old homestead acts. Might be able to snag some prime land for retirement". She remarked.
Zak thought it over for a second then shook his head. "Sounds nice, but probably be after me if it does".
Bookie shrugged, "Don't think your wrong there. Oh hey, that spot looks good. Vector 40, that patch of off-color grass".
Looking down he found said nice landing pad. Looked like the foundations of some expansive rural mansion, now the only presence left was that the grass couldn't grow over it as well as it could the rest of the area. Nodding at each other, they began descent procedures. Soon enough everyone could feel the thump of the gears on earth throughout their entire body. Throttling down the engines Zak began the shutdown sequence. They weren't planning on getting off the ground quickly.
Hitting the switch for the intercom Zak decided to give a farewell address. "Alright docs and co, we are down. I don't know about you but I'm staying in here. Just cause they said the air is fine doesn't mean I'm leaving. Knock on the door if you need me and the radio don't work, or just come running back screaming. That will do".
"Yeah, yeah. Just don't leave until we get back. I don't want to be stranded here where it looks like paradise for a Gemenonese" came from the Marine escort for the eggheads.
"Don't get eaten by the wildlife then" Zak retorted before shutting off the intercom. Turning to Bookie, he asked a question. "Got any cards?".
"You can bet I do" she replied.
<><><>
One Rick Sebastian, a simple PFC in the Marine corp was stuck in one of the most hated duties. VIP escort duty. And one of the worst forms, for a bunch of nerds on expedition. "They said you could go see new worlds. They said it would be exotic. If I wanted to see more of Gemnon then I would have stayed on the farm" he could be heard complaining out loud on the group channel on low volume.
The rest of the group politely ignored the bitching as they attempted to use the bulky survey instruments in their clumsy hazmat suits. Lots of antennae on boxy forms along with a few different containment vessels for plant and geological samples.
The marine continued to walk a rough perimeter patrol, rifle technically held ready if loosely. He wasn't happy that the one shady spot they chose to set up at was for some deep deep old growth. The kind where the trees are tall enough and the canopies dense enough to block out almost all the light to the ground. Made things difficult to walk regardless thanks to the carpet of roots and particularly stubborn shrubs. Weren't any good wide clearings, that's for sure.
"Hmm, possible artificial signs of planting here and there. We are going to need sampling equipment for the dendrochronology tests later. Not that it matters much without the meteorology data for the region. But it will be a rough number" remarked one of the scientists to a colleague.
"Hmm Mr. Sebastian? Going to need your help for something". Said another of the talking heads.
"Yeah? What is it?" he replied over the comms.
"Could I trouble you to take this marking tape out, just find a few random trees to mark for sampling later. Just don't make them too close to each other, about twenty will do for the most basic survey".
Rick wanted to say no, but that would just leave him pacing in a circle for more then an hour. "Fine, I'll do it".
"Thank you. Here is the roll, easy to see orange and silver. Just don't get lost. I don't think any of us are qualified for a rescue attempt". Rick snorted at that. But he took the thick roll of tape and left.
He slung the tape into his quick take sack and started circling around to see a good spot to enter the woods. Picking one he started making his way in, the world cast in shadows with the little light to filter its way through the canopy. Enough that he gladly turned on his helmet's light to be able to see his own feet. At the same time though he was getting spooked by the contrast of light from his flashlight and the darker bits outside. There wasn't anything like dust to get hung in the cone of light, but the sound of his heartbeat inside the suit did not help his sense of unease. He wished these plastic suits had better insulation, he was way too chilly and clammy.
Constantly snapping his sight from his feet to in front of him he at times could have sworn he caught something in the corner of his eyes. But a quick glance revealed nothing but odd knots in the wood or fallen branches. Even the occasional log. Must have been a trick of the light he admitted to himself. Lot of beams of life coming and going as the wind blew through the tops.
It took him a second to realize something else. Lots of plants so far, mushrooms, and a few old, weathered berries here and there. But no animals. A bit weird. If someone put trees just like those in the colonies, then where were the animals? Birds, deer, anything? Did they all migrate already, it seemed close to winter from the looks of the grass and leaves he spotted on the way here. Stopping every once in a while, to hack a piece of tape onto a tree, he was otherwise alone to his own thoughts. And the Marine corp wasn't good about having its folk with time to themselves alone. Gingerly holding his gun again he kept walking.
But as he took another step, he thought he heard something, Rick spun around with rifle raised. Only to find something strange. He was treated to the incongruous site of a bike. A child's bike from the size of it, now overgrown. Whoever had left it here never came back, and the tree it was chained to had grown around and through it to bring the thing half a meter above the ground. What metal was left exposed showed that at one time it was painted red and white. He wondered what story this bike had to tell. Shaking off the obviously imagined child's laugh he kept walking away. Tilting his head down revealed that there was an actual path he was following without realizing, some sort of disused game path? Looking back the way he came he definitely saw more of it. Turning back forward he kept going, was he on to something? The light seemed to be growing stronger, the trees less grown here. Sure, enough as he kept walking he found himself on the other side of the forest. Looking onto some old, abandoned village.
Squat wooden buildings the same as any in areas without much industry for prefabs. One story things scattered almost haphazardly on a now gone dirt path. A big farm vehicle or truck scattered here and there in lots or garage driveways. Looked like a small cluster of residential, probably the farms further away. Keeping on emerging from the forest he looked once more over the place. Grass had overgrown some of the areas, the windows almost covered by the waves of gently blown vegetation. Old wire fences a host to any number of vines and the wooden ones long fallen over. For all the life around, he couldn't call it anything but desolate. If it was in good condition, he knew his parents would have loved to be here, especially if the land grants were large and the soil good. A nice bit of rural farmland for his Lord Bothering parents to reside on with yet another batch of younger siblings getting their own patches of dirt when they grew up. But the shadows in the structures almost seemed to mock him, there is no more human life here. His mind seemed to conjure up that thought. Shaking his head again, he turned back to head into the forest. He didn't want to be alone right now, best get back to the others. Even if it was through the foreboding darkness.
<><><>
It was later in the week when Zak was told to actually head into one of the abandoned towns they had overflown earlier. Enough time had passed that they knew that the place was not completely lifeless in terms of anything not green and stuck in the ground. Which is why he took pleasure in what he was about to say as the craft settled down.
"Make sure to pack your flare guns and rifles kids, cause we saw bears down there. Who imports bears to their new colonies?". Watching the chaos through the camera Zak freely had a shit eating grin on his face. He wasn't lying, it was just that the bears had all left as soon as he had zoomed by them and were not coming back. Well for now at least. Seriously though, bears. But anyway, this time he had to actually leave the Raptor. The air was definitely safe they tested and nothing disease wise so far. Which meant an extended stay. Which meant huffing boxes around to set it up.
Having set down near the edge of town they were heading to near one of the major town hubs to camp at. The chosen spot, near some large building, looked like one of the center points of the community judging by the roads. A whole bunch of different uniform blocks of housing leading to this communal building with alot of yard space around it. The tower the big brick thing had was topped by some big icon on it. A large vertical line with a horizontal line two thirds of the way up it. That couldn't have been real gold, right? It was shiny, but would someone have gone to the effort to do that? Well temples certainly had had stranger things on em. Setting down the latest crate and finding that Bookie had gone off with the motor sled for something else without him, he decided that a break was in order.
The courtyard he was in had a tall brick and plaster enclosing wall. And he remembered seeing strange things on it as he passed through the doorway. With a better look he saw them. It looked like someone had created some sort of mural on the side out of tiny tiles, several of them. A mosaic, was that what they were called? Ones done in black, white, and various shades of gray. The one he stopped in front of depicted a person with long misshapen hair and full chin hair in robes alongside a laurel crown? Only it was made of thorns, both in tile and eerily with actual thorny plants. They had somehow gone through holes or cracks in the wall to almost perfectly outline the tiles beneath. It can't have been cultivated. Right? But there was only so much vegetation around the place, a bit odd to have it be so concentrated. Trying to look into the eyes of the figure Zak had to turn away for a moment. Something seemed to make him have to turn away. Looking back for a moment he had to wonder, why was to trying to match eyes with someone looking up?
Shaking his head, Zak kept walking along the length of the mural filled wall. One of them appeared to be out of a scene from Gemenon, one of the places even the Gemenonese consider out in the sticks. Someone born in an animal barn, and people praying to the baby? Cows and sheep were around the place seemingly providing warmth to the child in the winter judging by the snow. And winged figures watching downward? Depictions of their Lords? Whoever these figures were they were obviously important. Hearing a trundling sound he turned to look over his shoulder, yep that was Bookie in the distance with another load to move. He spared one last glance back to the mural. Hmm did the figures have that impression of a circle around their heads before? Must have been because of the contrast, all black and white made it hard to see some details. Better get back to work, not wondering over strange pieces of art. Would get the weird malaise he felt to go away with some sweat. Better if he was in the sky but beggars can't be choosers.
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Valkyria Chronicles: Unexpected Fireteam
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN: One of the most emotional moments of Valkyria Chronicles is about to have an unexpected interruption. Hope everyone will have or has had a good new years and that the next year is better then the last. If you like what you see and want to commission something of your own or just to support me visit my Patreon please
AN2: This series is commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle on Patreon.
For Squad 7 as they were resting, it came out of nowhere. Rosie was finally going to be able to express herself, to apologize to Isara and tell her the story she wanted to tell. Someone should have been standing guard, but they thought they were safe. Far enough behind the last reported enemy force to be able to get a bit of rest and maintenance in. And in all honesty it would have been a coin flip if a technically "trained" army unit would have posted a sentry. First was an explosion and then a gunshot. Rosie was in shock for only a moment as a bullet wizzed right between her and Isara in the explosion's wake. Quickly grabbing Isara as the dust cloud enveloped them she brought them both behind the Edelweiss. She heard Largo yelling and gunshots, people screaming to get to cover and for weapons. Rosie grabbed her sidearm and plinked a few rounds downrange, but as someone else joined her behind cover she found her return fire joined with a bit more firepower than there should have been. Ignoring the strange gunshots since it wasn't at her she kept firing to empty her magazine.
As she reloaded and the dust settled she saw that whatever group of Imps had chosen to take a pot shot at them had quickly broken off. Her eyes meanwhile looked onto the unknown group of militia that had somehow shown up. She didn't recognize any of those weapons, and some had some rather nice ones. Rosie immediately saw them as suspicious but as Welkin noted as he and Isara scrambled into the tank, not something they were going to deal with until the actual Imps were far enough away. She still resolved to keep her gun ready. So the entire group immediately moved. But when they did finally stop to sort things out, it was not a situation any of them expected.
Back at their latest base camp, a considerable amount of Squad 7 was assembled within their mess tent. Rosie herself was standing near Isara, still spooked at the near death experience and not quite wanting to let the dark haired girl out of sight. Everyone else was seated around, forming a rough semicircle to face the group of six newcomers. The newcomers, Rosie noted, started ticking off familiar notes when one looked at them closely. All were similar, newly turned adults with militia uniforms as noted earlier, all were female, and all of them shared at least a few facial features in common. But each also shared other features with others in the room. When everyone was seated it was an awkward silence. Until the group under watch all almost as one turned to the LT and said a word that made the tent erupt in chaos. "Dad".
Rosie mutely looked between the group and then at Welkin, then looked back. Her mind finally realizing what the common denominator was. The tilt of a chin, the shape of a cheekbone, little details. Not that everyone else had not started putting together their own part of a surprising picture. Half of them were dark haired, though only two had the more distinctive shade of Darscens along with the dress patterns. For a moment Rosie remembered some of her words in the past, not kind ones but . . . Rosie refocused on the other girl that had caught her eye. One who in particular had a twin tailed brown haired and dark golden eyed look, a girl that looked just like a slightly younger version of a certain baker in the unit. Judging by the rapid looks said baker was taking, she was coming to the same wild conclusion. If one looked, three others were also doing the same thing. Not to say that everyone else wasn't starting to think on just who the girls resembled the most.
"I, I, I'm too young to be a father" babbled Welkin. Saying that did not win him any favors by the look of things but it got people spilling the beans at least. Something that had Rosie holding her head in pain trying to stick everything together from six different mouths babbling things out.
Largo was the one to speak up after the first burst of show and tell. "Okay, your telling me that each of you are from the future. That we won against the Imps but that they lost most of their country in civil war except the bit immediately bordering us. Then you all were busy fighting an evil mad scientist from there who did something out of a comic to bring you all here?".
"Yes Uncle Largo!" came from Alicia's young look alike Isara. As were most of those there named Isara. Only one was named Alicia which was ominous, then again the fact that the rest of them were named Isara said bad things about just where that bullet would have gone. It felt like someone walking on her grave when that realization hit Rosie.
Still Rosie could appreciate how the kid got Largo to sputter. Honestly she could see that the big bear would be a good uncle. But what the kid said next really brought a smile to her face. "Where's Aunt Eleanor? Oh right, you two don't have your farm yet right?".
The big lug immediately froze red faced. Not too surprising there, and not too surprising to most of the girls apparently. Though the look of the rest of Squad Seven certainly ran the gauntlet.
Shaking her head at Largo being presented with his dreams having come true Rosie decided to continue his point. "Right, big man aside. We got all the stories straight? We got Alicia's kid, Juno's Kid, The fricking Princess's Kid, that crazy Valk's Kid, our standoffish sniper's Kid, and then last but not least Isara's own Kid. What are we going to do with all of you lot stuck here? Unless anyone have ideas?". No one did.
"Well, I don't think anyone is thinking of turning you away right? So you can all stay with the unit for now. There is still a war going on though" came from Welkin who seemed to have finally gotten his wind under him.
"Right, so since we are still waiting for chow to get ready we can still learn a bit more about each other. Treat this like a new unit being joined in" Rosie decided to say.
The thought of the fact that the Princess was some hidden Darscen crossed her mind, before she shook it away. A part of her wanted to say the girl was lying, but they had seen pictures of the Princess once or twice. The relation was obvious. She had promised herself to not hate Darscens for nothing but finding out your monarchs were at least half Darscen if not more was something else. Rosie clenched her hand, still had a ways to go she thought.
Hearing a particularly loud voice turned her attention back to the circus. "There is Mama Alicia too!" came from Juno's blonde-haired child. Huh only needed some glasses to look like a photo of her mother. Though it might be rude to say she also needed to lose the unrestrained smile. Her mother could be quite frosty.
Two of the other kids nodded, specifically the two whose other parents weren't here. Looking at that track record . . . She could only shake her head. Looking back up, she realized that things were getting too awkward again. Better get them all something to focus on before things turn sour. Comically sashaying over she put a hand on the near comatose Welkin's shoulder. "Well, Mr. Big Man Gunther, you got quite the ways to go if you somehow got kids with those two. Got anymore royalty or enemy bigwigs to seduce? Or is anyone else in the unit going to fall for your charms?".
Feeling a bit of a weight on her hand and seeing Welkin tip back slightly, Rosie saw that her words might have been just a tad too good. Time for Plan B. "Well his lights are out. Hey kiddos got any embarrassing future stories to tell Aunt Rosie about this goofball. How about trying to blackmail your parents for stuff?".
Rosie smiled as a few of the young ones came over to start talking. The flustered look on the usually prideful Juno's face was quite something to see as she interacted with her mini me. What she would do for a photo, though that journo would have been too annoying of a tagalong for it.
". . . Yeah, a Maid. But none of us knew she was some big general in the Empire . . . neither did she". That caught her attention for a second, those words from the silverette. Turning a gimlet eye on the still out of it LT, she shook her head. Bigshot indeed.
Stepping past Alicia who was being besieged by her and Welkin's batch as Susie tried to run interference for her friend, her ears caught something that got her stomach speaking. "Mom's favorite cinnamon buns. Mama, do you have any here?". Heh, kid had good taste. And guessing from the babbled promise they would be getting some tomorrow if things kept calm.
She turned her eyes to check the remaining two. Off in the corner she saw that the brooder was actually interacting with her apparent kid. Rosie frowned though, it didn't look like the topic they were speaking of was any good. Not as she saw Marina look up widely for a second, casting her gaze over the entire room. Catching her eye, she tried to say silently if everything was ok. Whatever she had heard was apparently worrying, it looked like Marina was questioning everything. Not getting any response she started walking over only to see the two hug, whispering something together. Best get to that a bit later, they were having a moment. For now she had one last person to check on.
"Heya Isara, how are you and your mini-me?" she asked as she stopped by Isara's side. It was a bit weird to Rosie's sensibilities, two siblings even if not related having kids. Then again those sensibilities had told her to hate Darcsens. Shaking her head she managed to catch what was being said.
"No no we are doing fine, just talking about the Edelweiss. It's nice to hear that Dad's tank was still around into the future. Though . . ." Isara's frown brought one to Rosie's own.
"Just that there is a story behind my name". Came from the young one named Alicia.
"The same sort of story that is the reason for everyone else's names?" Rosie tried to ask gently.
The still young girl nodded a little sadly, "Mom and Dad would get sad when I ask. They told me the story but, they still aren't really over it. Not sure if they ever will be".
Rosie wondered if she should do something as she seemed to stop, but it looked like Alicia still had something else to say. "Its, its why they stayed at Lanseal, teacher and lead for the staff and R&D teams. Get away from the memories". Isara took the pause to come even closer to her apparent child, Rosie was a bit put off by the fact that they were more like sisters, but Isara wasn't shying away. The two so close in appearance took a moment to share warmth for a time. Even if the hug seemed a bit awkward.
Alicia at least seemed to appreciate the sentiment. "Bruhl, I visited once or twice with them. We planted Lion's Paw in the old ruins, no one ever returned after the War. But if I am truly stuck here, I wonder if it would be a happier place. They left but they never seemed to forget it".
Well time for Rosie to join in, putting thought into action she hugged Alicia from the other side. "Hey, kid. I think that we can do something with all of your help. You say we beat the Imps already, then we can do so with even more kickass help. And if you want to see Bruhl as a happier place then I think we can come by to help out. Show we are strong enough to rebuild. I think I promised already but I'll do it again. I can hold a good tune, we can have a show, dance, music with everyone in the Squad. All you need to get nice memories of a place. And who's to say you can't keep making good memories?".
"Hey, what's this about trying to organize a show? Don't count me out, I can grab a few of the others for sure! Get everything nice and set up, it'll be as good as new" came from Edy who bulldozed into the conversation. Rosie could only smile indulgently at Edy, the younger would be rival. But it wasn't a bad thing to say by the smiles and yeses it got from everyone.
When Rosie started wondering if the hug was going on for too long, she felt someone else stepping close by. Looking she found the LT, a little wan but still moving. He spoke up. "Hey there, I. I guess if I am your father, then I should at least try to get to know you. I talked a bit to the others. It seemed right to get to speak to you as well. As long as you don't want to blackmail me for something in the future". He smiled weakly at that which brought a little laugh from Alicia.
Stepping a bit back to give them some space, Rosie saw that everyone else was mingling a bit, the pentet of Isaras walking around with a few people in their orbit. It certainly looked livelier than it was before. The Valky kid and Alica's sprog were talking to Aunt Yoko about bread or something with the other Darcsen kid hanging close by still pestering big Alicia, elsewhere Marina's kid seemed to be showing off her gun to her mother and the last girl of the group was apparently questioning Largo about something to his still bright embarrassment. Well Rosie could safely say that everyone seemed to be meshing well together, at this rate they were definitely bigger than a Squad. Hmm, Platoon Seven didn't sound great. Well no need to get rid of a good thing. Especially if they could get to kicking more Imp ass then before. Yeah, she had a good feeling about the future.
". . . Wait. What do you mean I'm a Valkyria!!" was heard from Alicia at the top of her lungs, interrupting Rosie's good moment. She could only grasp her forehead in pain, what was this now?!
AN2: This series is commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle on Patreon.
For Squad 7 as they were resting, it came out of nowhere. Rosie was finally going to be able to express herself, to apologize to Isara and tell her the story she wanted to tell. Someone should have been standing guard, but they thought they were safe. Far enough behind the last reported enemy force to be able to get a bit of rest and maintenance in. And in all honesty it would have been a coin flip if a technically "trained" army unit would have posted a sentry. First was an explosion and then a gunshot. Rosie was in shock for only a moment as a bullet wizzed right between her and Isara in the explosion's wake. Quickly grabbing Isara as the dust cloud enveloped them she brought them both behind the Edelweiss. She heard Largo yelling and gunshots, people screaming to get to cover and for weapons. Rosie grabbed her sidearm and plinked a few rounds downrange, but as someone else joined her behind cover she found her return fire joined with a bit more firepower than there should have been. Ignoring the strange gunshots since it wasn't at her she kept firing to empty her magazine.
As she reloaded and the dust settled she saw that whatever group of Imps had chosen to take a pot shot at them had quickly broken off. Her eyes meanwhile looked onto the unknown group of militia that had somehow shown up. She didn't recognize any of those weapons, and some had some rather nice ones. Rosie immediately saw them as suspicious but as Welkin noted as he and Isara scrambled into the tank, not something they were going to deal with until the actual Imps were far enough away. She still resolved to keep her gun ready. So the entire group immediately moved. But when they did finally stop to sort things out, it was not a situation any of them expected.
Back at their latest base camp, a considerable amount of Squad 7 was assembled within their mess tent. Rosie herself was standing near Isara, still spooked at the near death experience and not quite wanting to let the dark haired girl out of sight. Everyone else was seated around, forming a rough semicircle to face the group of six newcomers. The newcomers, Rosie noted, started ticking off familiar notes when one looked at them closely. All were similar, newly turned adults with militia uniforms as noted earlier, all were female, and all of them shared at least a few facial features in common. But each also shared other features with others in the room. When everyone was seated it was an awkward silence. Until the group under watch all almost as one turned to the LT and said a word that made the tent erupt in chaos. "Dad".
Rosie mutely looked between the group and then at Welkin, then looked back. Her mind finally realizing what the common denominator was. The tilt of a chin, the shape of a cheekbone, little details. Not that everyone else had not started putting together their own part of a surprising picture. Half of them were dark haired, though only two had the more distinctive shade of Darscens along with the dress patterns. For a moment Rosie remembered some of her words in the past, not kind ones but . . . Rosie refocused on the other girl that had caught her eye. One who in particular had a twin tailed brown haired and dark golden eyed look, a girl that looked just like a slightly younger version of a certain baker in the unit. Judging by the rapid looks said baker was taking, she was coming to the same wild conclusion. If one looked, three others were also doing the same thing. Not to say that everyone else wasn't starting to think on just who the girls resembled the most.
"I, I, I'm too young to be a father" babbled Welkin. Saying that did not win him any favors by the look of things but it got people spilling the beans at least. Something that had Rosie holding her head in pain trying to stick everything together from six different mouths babbling things out.
Largo was the one to speak up after the first burst of show and tell. "Okay, your telling me that each of you are from the future. That we won against the Imps but that they lost most of their country in civil war except the bit immediately bordering us. Then you all were busy fighting an evil mad scientist from there who did something out of a comic to bring you all here?".
"Yes Uncle Largo!" came from Alicia's young look alike Isara. As were most of those there named Isara. Only one was named Alicia which was ominous, then again the fact that the rest of them were named Isara said bad things about just where that bullet would have gone. It felt like someone walking on her grave when that realization hit Rosie.
Still Rosie could appreciate how the kid got Largo to sputter. Honestly she could see that the big bear would be a good uncle. But what the kid said next really brought a smile to her face. "Where's Aunt Eleanor? Oh right, you two don't have your farm yet right?".
The big lug immediately froze red faced. Not too surprising there, and not too surprising to most of the girls apparently. Though the look of the rest of Squad Seven certainly ran the gauntlet.
Shaking her head at Largo being presented with his dreams having come true Rosie decided to continue his point. "Right, big man aside. We got all the stories straight? We got Alicia's kid, Juno's Kid, The fricking Princess's Kid, that crazy Valk's Kid, our standoffish sniper's Kid, and then last but not least Isara's own Kid. What are we going to do with all of you lot stuck here? Unless anyone have ideas?". No one did.
"Well, I don't think anyone is thinking of turning you away right? So you can all stay with the unit for now. There is still a war going on though" came from Welkin who seemed to have finally gotten his wind under him.
"Right, so since we are still waiting for chow to get ready we can still learn a bit more about each other. Treat this like a new unit being joined in" Rosie decided to say.
The thought of the fact that the Princess was some hidden Darscen crossed her mind, before she shook it away. A part of her wanted to say the girl was lying, but they had seen pictures of the Princess once or twice. The relation was obvious. She had promised herself to not hate Darscens for nothing but finding out your monarchs were at least half Darscen if not more was something else. Rosie clenched her hand, still had a ways to go she thought.
Hearing a particularly loud voice turned her attention back to the circus. "There is Mama Alicia too!" came from Juno's blonde-haired child. Huh only needed some glasses to look like a photo of her mother. Though it might be rude to say she also needed to lose the unrestrained smile. Her mother could be quite frosty.
Two of the other kids nodded, specifically the two whose other parents weren't here. Looking at that track record . . . She could only shake her head. Looking back up, she realized that things were getting too awkward again. Better get them all something to focus on before things turn sour. Comically sashaying over she put a hand on the near comatose Welkin's shoulder. "Well, Mr. Big Man Gunther, you got quite the ways to go if you somehow got kids with those two. Got anymore royalty or enemy bigwigs to seduce? Or is anyone else in the unit going to fall for your charms?".
Feeling a bit of a weight on her hand and seeing Welkin tip back slightly, Rosie saw that her words might have been just a tad too good. Time for Plan B. "Well his lights are out. Hey kiddos got any embarrassing future stories to tell Aunt Rosie about this goofball. How about trying to blackmail your parents for stuff?".
Rosie smiled as a few of the young ones came over to start talking. The flustered look on the usually prideful Juno's face was quite something to see as she interacted with her mini me. What she would do for a photo, though that journo would have been too annoying of a tagalong for it.
". . . Yeah, a Maid. But none of us knew she was some big general in the Empire . . . neither did she". That caught her attention for a second, those words from the silverette. Turning a gimlet eye on the still out of it LT, she shook her head. Bigshot indeed.
Stepping past Alicia who was being besieged by her and Welkin's batch as Susie tried to run interference for her friend, her ears caught something that got her stomach speaking. "Mom's favorite cinnamon buns. Mama, do you have any here?". Heh, kid had good taste. And guessing from the babbled promise they would be getting some tomorrow if things kept calm.
She turned her eyes to check the remaining two. Off in the corner she saw that the brooder was actually interacting with her apparent kid. Rosie frowned though, it didn't look like the topic they were speaking of was any good. Not as she saw Marina look up widely for a second, casting her gaze over the entire room. Catching her eye, she tried to say silently if everything was ok. Whatever she had heard was apparently worrying, it looked like Marina was questioning everything. Not getting any response she started walking over only to see the two hug, whispering something together. Best get to that a bit later, they were having a moment. For now she had one last person to check on.
"Heya Isara, how are you and your mini-me?" she asked as she stopped by Isara's side. It was a bit weird to Rosie's sensibilities, two siblings even if not related having kids. Then again those sensibilities had told her to hate Darcsens. Shaking her head she managed to catch what was being said.
"No no we are doing fine, just talking about the Edelweiss. It's nice to hear that Dad's tank was still around into the future. Though . . ." Isara's frown brought one to Rosie's own.
"Just that there is a story behind my name". Came from the young one named Alicia.
"The same sort of story that is the reason for everyone else's names?" Rosie tried to ask gently.
The still young girl nodded a little sadly, "Mom and Dad would get sad when I ask. They told me the story but, they still aren't really over it. Not sure if they ever will be".
Rosie wondered if she should do something as she seemed to stop, but it looked like Alicia still had something else to say. "Its, its why they stayed at Lanseal, teacher and lead for the staff and R&D teams. Get away from the memories". Isara took the pause to come even closer to her apparent child, Rosie was a bit put off by the fact that they were more like sisters, but Isara wasn't shying away. The two so close in appearance took a moment to share warmth for a time. Even if the hug seemed a bit awkward.
Alicia at least seemed to appreciate the sentiment. "Bruhl, I visited once or twice with them. We planted Lion's Paw in the old ruins, no one ever returned after the War. But if I am truly stuck here, I wonder if it would be a happier place. They left but they never seemed to forget it".
Well time for Rosie to join in, putting thought into action she hugged Alicia from the other side. "Hey, kid. I think that we can do something with all of your help. You say we beat the Imps already, then we can do so with even more kickass help. And if you want to see Bruhl as a happier place then I think we can come by to help out. Show we are strong enough to rebuild. I think I promised already but I'll do it again. I can hold a good tune, we can have a show, dance, music with everyone in the Squad. All you need to get nice memories of a place. And who's to say you can't keep making good memories?".
"Hey, what's this about trying to organize a show? Don't count me out, I can grab a few of the others for sure! Get everything nice and set up, it'll be as good as new" came from Edy who bulldozed into the conversation. Rosie could only smile indulgently at Edy, the younger would be rival. But it wasn't a bad thing to say by the smiles and yeses it got from everyone.
When Rosie started wondering if the hug was going on for too long, she felt someone else stepping close by. Looking she found the LT, a little wan but still moving. He spoke up. "Hey there, I. I guess if I am your father, then I should at least try to get to know you. I talked a bit to the others. It seemed right to get to speak to you as well. As long as you don't want to blackmail me for something in the future". He smiled weakly at that which brought a little laugh from Alicia.
Stepping a bit back to give them some space, Rosie saw that everyone else was mingling a bit, the pentet of Isaras walking around with a few people in their orbit. It certainly looked livelier than it was before. The Valky kid and Alica's sprog were talking to Aunt Yoko about bread or something with the other Darcsen kid hanging close by still pestering big Alicia, elsewhere Marina's kid seemed to be showing off her gun to her mother and the last girl of the group was apparently questioning Largo about something to his still bright embarrassment. Well Rosie could safely say that everyone seemed to be meshing well together, at this rate they were definitely bigger than a Squad. Hmm, Platoon Seven didn't sound great. Well no need to get rid of a good thing. Especially if they could get to kicking more Imp ass then before. Yeah, she had a good feeling about the future.
". . . Wait. What do you mean I'm a Valkyria!!" was heard from Alicia at the top of her lungs, interrupting Rosie's good moment. She could only grasp her forehead in pain, what was this now?!
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BSG: Discovery- Movie Night
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN1: Another installment for the BSG Discovery series
AN2: You can learn alot about a culture and its history from its movies, especially this one.
When Rick, one of the few Colonial Marines stuck on the creepy planet of the 13th heard about movie night he wasn't the biggest fan at first. It was being held by the geeks who had apparently spent most of their time working on translating parts of it. But with a lack of anything else to do he showed up. He was actually curious about what the 13th tribe had as entertainment. Well the nerds doing the translating said it wasn't something like a straight action fic, something more like their Cylon War. Something called "The Ten Thousand of Berlin". Hades it was supposed to be about aliens, actual real aliens. That was still something he didn't really get. Actual aliens and the loss of Earth, that would certainly drive the folks back home bonkers. Looking at the different folks around it showed a decent mix, the eggheads, some of the Raptor jockeys, a few folks on shore leave from the Galactica or the science ship, not a bad sized crowd. Someone had lugged a cook pot over to the side and was making snacks along with a table holding a few drinks. Nothing to actually wet his whistle but he had a shift tomorrow so probably best not to get smashed drunk beforehand.
When it looked like everyone had arrived, they started setting things up. The speaker they had did a little credit thing with whoever worked on things, and everyone clapped for them. The egghead, one Richard was explaining a few things before the movie started. Called it some sort of extended version they made to include details to show what was going on. The first scene of the movies was some pan overshot of some big grove with a large obelisk covered in names. They didn't translate the names, but they had captions calling it the Berlin Obelisk. An added voice over played and remarked that they were olive trees around the names of those fallen in the war. The original film voice over would have explained that if the Scinfaxi aliens ever returned then all the trees would be lit aflame as a beacon to call for war.
There was a minor stir when it was explained that part of this would be the dousing of another flame that the movie panned over, a large plinth holding a bowl with said flames. Apparently, it was a flame made from the same lineage of the Olympic flames now lost on Earth. Something that the 13 Colonies remembered but had never really held as important. Well unless they were the fringe crazies. A few gossipers in the crowd made noises about the shared culture which Richard rolled his eyes at. Some of those two-cubit wannabe vid reporters. Still, it was interesting that this flame was tended to by what looked like Vestal Virgins. The robes like some of what the priestesses back at the colonies used to wear.
The scene shifted to black though and a bunch of text was displayed in one of the 13th's many languages, the captions explaining that the last city still held on Earth in human hands was Berlin. The capital of one of their big powers. 10,000 souls had volunteered for its defense from across the provinces and colonies, all knowing they would die. All to show one last act of defiance to the enemy that was taking their home. One division against all the aliens on the planet. As a soldier raised on memories of the Cylon War, that was a nightmare situation. To lose even the most backwoods place like Gemnon to the Cylons, chilling. And almost immediately did Rick see that this was no shit place like Gemnon. The film started with telling the story of some soldier, apparently seen in a locker room kissing an icon on a beaded string before he tucked it away in his uniform. Rick recognized it as that strange cross symbol that the colony here had in droves. Then he had to whistle at what the soldier was putting on. Power armour the captions labeled it. Some of those around them shuddered and called it strapping a cylon's skeleton to your body, but Rick could appreciate the armour it let you have, along with the honking big rifle. That thing looked like it could be a machine gun. Definitely would make any tinhead sit down and pay attention.
The film then cut to a scene that showed soldiers fighting to protect transports, obvious civilians being evacuated. The first sight of the Scinfaxi was some weird tripod thing. A strange gold-red color with a goosebump raising mix of organic and techno parts. It stood maybe eight stories tall from looking at the buildings around it. The city they were in was obviously in ruins with the sounds of combat playing but all of it was drowned out as the tripod made some sort of bass filled roar with a blue green beam of light punching through a building to blow up a shuttle. The shot was dramatic as the flaming wreckage crashed onto some of the terrified civilians trying to escape. It showed the character introduced before rushing onto the scene with some sort of missile launcher to defiantly hit the thing, but the missile despite being on target hit something else. An energy shield, did the aliens actually have those things or was it just for the film? He had to wince though at the scream and the sight of the man being burned to bones and then ash by the alien beam weapon. It was obviously fake for the movie but still loud and nasty. The scene cut to black as the other soldiers rushed to do the same, grimly taking the attention on them from the tripod alien. He was a dyed in the wool, mean green fighting machine. But Rick had to admit that he didn't think he had the balls to do something like that. Dramatic music and the sounds of battle were still going on as he was thinking. A second later a caption showed up with some text on the screen, the translation saying that at some time the last shuttle had left, and no one was entering or leaving the city or even the planet again.
The next scene was a shot panning over some large tower, showing civies with cameras looking over the burning wartorn city. Then it cut to something else, the images of a different grain then the movie before. One of the eggheads at the front turned around and said loudly that it was supposed to be actual footage from the battle rather than film scenes. They heard the thunder of heavy artillery and saw the scene of a pack of the tripods being hit by the guns. One of them was a towering example that was taller than many skyscrapers, the added caption saying it was a kilometer tall. Rick's mouth dried at the thought of facing such a monster, the exclamations from everyone else saying their thoughts too. The sheer weight of the explosions that struck the thing could have rivaled the guns on a battlestar, and he felt the floor drop out from under him at the sight of how the thing could take the blows. Shields, real shields. No one had that sort of tech, no one. Well until these aliens.
Whatever leftover thought Rick had of being able to kick the aliens in the nads and helping bring the 13th back into the fold left him there. He was just a single jarhead, nothing they had could take out one of those things. It was only when what must have been dozens of different fighters and bombers finally hit the mega tripod along with a particularly massive barrage of artillery that caused the thing's shield to crack like an egg. The plating still managed to resist an insane amount of firepower before it fell with the force of a small earthquake that shook the screen.
"Frak" leaked out of his mouth, he was not the only one in the crowd. Rick noticed that the snacks he had were not really touched. He put them down on the ground, this wasn't a movie you ate snacks to.
The next scene that showed up was of a street fighting scene. One that showed what looked like some pink tide of flesh crawling up the street alongside biological looking mini tripods. The brief shot backwards showed some big buildings, the sorts that were either government or other big shot's place. This one had a horse statue and the actual building used paired pillars, pretty beat up and filled with sandbag fighting positions though. Turning back to the fight Rick saw soldiers with rifles and flamethrowers trying to stem the very real wave of flesh. The scene made even more terrifying since it was at night, only the spotlights and blazing of the flamethrowers letting you have any light in the otherwise blacked out city. Any NVGs would have been fucked in that sort of fight. It looked like the defenders would be swallowed up by the mass until a tank drove up and started spewing blue hot flames at the mass to beat it back. It looked like they would have a break, until a smaller eight story tall tripod showed up. The caption this time labeled it as a fraking scout. It swept the beam down the entire street toward the gov building and the camera feed cut out. The final few scenes of the night though were the most spectacular.
First there was a shot saying it was 5:39 by whatever time they used, it was getting maybe late afternoon by the lighting. They saw the big tower from earlier in the movie, a few shots of the camera crew and reporters up top. But as tall as the tower was, a large shadow was cast over them. It was harrowing to see the crew apparently accept their fates as one of those kilometer tall tripods was right up to them. The sound it made like nails on a chalkboard as it blasted them, destroying the entire tower in a single sweep. Then the final apex of the action. A pack of less than a dozen soldiers, each individual in a different uniform but all before a central flag on the roof of a scorched outbuilding. The time read 9:00. Each soldier died one by one, some even pulling the pins on grenades as a horde of the infantry sized pods overran them. The last soldier died at 9:01. The very last shot was from orbit. The added caption said this was actual footage. The time went to 9:03 and a mushroom cloud erupted. Panning out they saw the sight of nuclear scorched continents, no signs of human existence, no lights. Only black scorch marks around craters and a strange gold-red mass especially covering the southern hemisphere. There wasn't much noise in the room. Just quiet breathing. No one wanted to speak up after what they saw. Just stunned as the obvious ship the camera was attached to pulled away, the original colony of the 13th tribe receding from view. There were not any other ships or other orbital lights, the planet abandoned completely.
A voice finally broke the silence, a whispered "By the Lords". Rick only realized it was his a moment later. His thoughts returned to the ending scene as the movie credits scrolled across the bottom. Sure, it was a movie, but how much of it was still very real right now? Somewhere out there . . .
AN2: You can learn alot about a culture and its history from its movies, especially this one.
When Rick, one of the few Colonial Marines stuck on the creepy planet of the 13th heard about movie night he wasn't the biggest fan at first. It was being held by the geeks who had apparently spent most of their time working on translating parts of it. But with a lack of anything else to do he showed up. He was actually curious about what the 13th tribe had as entertainment. Well the nerds doing the translating said it wasn't something like a straight action fic, something more like their Cylon War. Something called "The Ten Thousand of Berlin". Hades it was supposed to be about aliens, actual real aliens. That was still something he didn't really get. Actual aliens and the loss of Earth, that would certainly drive the folks back home bonkers. Looking at the different folks around it showed a decent mix, the eggheads, some of the Raptor jockeys, a few folks on shore leave from the Galactica or the science ship, not a bad sized crowd. Someone had lugged a cook pot over to the side and was making snacks along with a table holding a few drinks. Nothing to actually wet his whistle but he had a shift tomorrow so probably best not to get smashed drunk beforehand.
When it looked like everyone had arrived, they started setting things up. The speaker they had did a little credit thing with whoever worked on things, and everyone clapped for them. The egghead, one Richard was explaining a few things before the movie started. Called it some sort of extended version they made to include details to show what was going on. The first scene of the movies was some pan overshot of some big grove with a large obelisk covered in names. They didn't translate the names, but they had captions calling it the Berlin Obelisk. An added voice over played and remarked that they were olive trees around the names of those fallen in the war. The original film voice over would have explained that if the Scinfaxi aliens ever returned then all the trees would be lit aflame as a beacon to call for war.
There was a minor stir when it was explained that part of this would be the dousing of another flame that the movie panned over, a large plinth holding a bowl with said flames. Apparently, it was a flame made from the same lineage of the Olympic flames now lost on Earth. Something that the 13 Colonies remembered but had never really held as important. Well unless they were the fringe crazies. A few gossipers in the crowd made noises about the shared culture which Richard rolled his eyes at. Some of those two-cubit wannabe vid reporters. Still, it was interesting that this flame was tended to by what looked like Vestal Virgins. The robes like some of what the priestesses back at the colonies used to wear.
The scene shifted to black though and a bunch of text was displayed in one of the 13th's many languages, the captions explaining that the last city still held on Earth in human hands was Berlin. The capital of one of their big powers. 10,000 souls had volunteered for its defense from across the provinces and colonies, all knowing they would die. All to show one last act of defiance to the enemy that was taking their home. One division against all the aliens on the planet. As a soldier raised on memories of the Cylon War, that was a nightmare situation. To lose even the most backwoods place like Gemnon to the Cylons, chilling. And almost immediately did Rick see that this was no shit place like Gemnon. The film started with telling the story of some soldier, apparently seen in a locker room kissing an icon on a beaded string before he tucked it away in his uniform. Rick recognized it as that strange cross symbol that the colony here had in droves. Then he had to whistle at what the soldier was putting on. Power armour the captions labeled it. Some of those around them shuddered and called it strapping a cylon's skeleton to your body, but Rick could appreciate the armour it let you have, along with the honking big rifle. That thing looked like it could be a machine gun. Definitely would make any tinhead sit down and pay attention.
The film then cut to a scene that showed soldiers fighting to protect transports, obvious civilians being evacuated. The first sight of the Scinfaxi was some weird tripod thing. A strange gold-red color with a goosebump raising mix of organic and techno parts. It stood maybe eight stories tall from looking at the buildings around it. The city they were in was obviously in ruins with the sounds of combat playing but all of it was drowned out as the tripod made some sort of bass filled roar with a blue green beam of light punching through a building to blow up a shuttle. The shot was dramatic as the flaming wreckage crashed onto some of the terrified civilians trying to escape. It showed the character introduced before rushing onto the scene with some sort of missile launcher to defiantly hit the thing, but the missile despite being on target hit something else. An energy shield, did the aliens actually have those things or was it just for the film? He had to wince though at the scream and the sight of the man being burned to bones and then ash by the alien beam weapon. It was obviously fake for the movie but still loud and nasty. The scene cut to black as the other soldiers rushed to do the same, grimly taking the attention on them from the tripod alien. He was a dyed in the wool, mean green fighting machine. But Rick had to admit that he didn't think he had the balls to do something like that. Dramatic music and the sounds of battle were still going on as he was thinking. A second later a caption showed up with some text on the screen, the translation saying that at some time the last shuttle had left, and no one was entering or leaving the city or even the planet again.
The next scene was a shot panning over some large tower, showing civies with cameras looking over the burning wartorn city. Then it cut to something else, the images of a different grain then the movie before. One of the eggheads at the front turned around and said loudly that it was supposed to be actual footage from the battle rather than film scenes. They heard the thunder of heavy artillery and saw the scene of a pack of the tripods being hit by the guns. One of them was a towering example that was taller than many skyscrapers, the added caption saying it was a kilometer tall. Rick's mouth dried at the thought of facing such a monster, the exclamations from everyone else saying their thoughts too. The sheer weight of the explosions that struck the thing could have rivaled the guns on a battlestar, and he felt the floor drop out from under him at the sight of how the thing could take the blows. Shields, real shields. No one had that sort of tech, no one. Well until these aliens.
Whatever leftover thought Rick had of being able to kick the aliens in the nads and helping bring the 13th back into the fold left him there. He was just a single jarhead, nothing they had could take out one of those things. It was only when what must have been dozens of different fighters and bombers finally hit the mega tripod along with a particularly massive barrage of artillery that caused the thing's shield to crack like an egg. The plating still managed to resist an insane amount of firepower before it fell with the force of a small earthquake that shook the screen.
"Frak" leaked out of his mouth, he was not the only one in the crowd. Rick noticed that the snacks he had were not really touched. He put them down on the ground, this wasn't a movie you ate snacks to.
The next scene that showed up was of a street fighting scene. One that showed what looked like some pink tide of flesh crawling up the street alongside biological looking mini tripods. The brief shot backwards showed some big buildings, the sorts that were either government or other big shot's place. This one had a horse statue and the actual building used paired pillars, pretty beat up and filled with sandbag fighting positions though. Turning back to the fight Rick saw soldiers with rifles and flamethrowers trying to stem the very real wave of flesh. The scene made even more terrifying since it was at night, only the spotlights and blazing of the flamethrowers letting you have any light in the otherwise blacked out city. Any NVGs would have been fucked in that sort of fight. It looked like the defenders would be swallowed up by the mass until a tank drove up and started spewing blue hot flames at the mass to beat it back. It looked like they would have a break, until a smaller eight story tall tripod showed up. The caption this time labeled it as a fraking scout. It swept the beam down the entire street toward the gov building and the camera feed cut out. The final few scenes of the night though were the most spectacular.
First there was a shot saying it was 5:39 by whatever time they used, it was getting maybe late afternoon by the lighting. They saw the big tower from earlier in the movie, a few shots of the camera crew and reporters up top. But as tall as the tower was, a large shadow was cast over them. It was harrowing to see the crew apparently accept their fates as one of those kilometer tall tripods was right up to them. The sound it made like nails on a chalkboard as it blasted them, destroying the entire tower in a single sweep. Then the final apex of the action. A pack of less than a dozen soldiers, each individual in a different uniform but all before a central flag on the roof of a scorched outbuilding. The time read 9:00. Each soldier died one by one, some even pulling the pins on grenades as a horde of the infantry sized pods overran them. The last soldier died at 9:01. The very last shot was from orbit. The added caption said this was actual footage. The time went to 9:03 and a mushroom cloud erupted. Panning out they saw the sight of nuclear scorched continents, no signs of human existence, no lights. Only black scorch marks around craters and a strange gold-red mass especially covering the southern hemisphere. There wasn't much noise in the room. Just quiet breathing. No one wanted to speak up after what they saw. Just stunned as the obvious ship the camera was attached to pulled away, the original colony of the 13th tribe receding from view. There were not any other ships or other orbital lights, the planet abandoned completely.
A voice finally broke the silence, a whispered "By the Lords". Rick only realized it was his a moment later. His thoughts returned to the ending scene as the movie credits scrolled across the bottom. Sure, it was a movie, but how much of it was still very real right now? Somewhere out there . . .
BSG: Discovery- Unsettling Reports
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN1: Captain Adama of the Galactica is treated to a quiet night of worry and contemplation with his XO Tigh as the unsettling disturbances they have encountered take their toll.
It was once again the quiet shift on the Galactica and a time for talk away from the junior staff. While a more official meeting would come later, the CO and XO wanted to get their thoughts out ahead of time. Especially considering the nerves much of the expedition was developing. Something especially poignant as Tigh slapped down a few folders on the plotting table.
"This boat ain't an insane asylum, but it certainly looks like it is going to be. That is the fifth negligent discharge incident we have had so far. The geeks would be more pissed off by the collateral damage to the buildings if they weren't so spooked themselves" Tigh groused.
The sight of a number of shot up murals and buildings captured in a few still frames. Adama made an agreeing grumble as he sipped from his mug of coffee. Swallowing, he spoke. "You cannot exactly blame them, they have been working for coming on four months. That is not a short deployment, especially with no real prospect for action. We might have stacked the crew with the near retirees but we have enough freshly graduated to not be taking the stress too well".
"And the vets are good at finding entertainment" Tigh grunts darkly amused.
Tigh then sighs. "From that view, yah. You would be right. Not exactly any port of call for them to really blow off steam. Its also that the planet is too creepy to really relax on. It's better when away from where the old settlements were but that doesn't mean people don't keep seeing grumpkins everywhere too". He tapped one of the open folders, an image of some scenery on top. Center of pride being a burning tree in the middle of a forest clearing, one that looked particularly ominous due to the ragged decorations it once had even before someone shot it up and started a forest fire.
"We could organize a few exercises, get some of the rust knocked off. Will need some precautions though, we don't really have the material for it" Adama mused.
"Don't want them to shoot up some random forest because they thought they were some creepy gribblies" barked Tigh.
Adama pointed to the other folder with a summary sheet for Tigh to read. "Creepy indeed. But we should move on to the actually pressing documented information. You remember how the entirety of the last colony stopped recording information at the exact same time across the entire planet?".
Tigh took a sip of his own mug of "enhanced" coffee as his eyes panned over the sheet. "Yeh, same thing here right?".
Adama nodded, which got a click of a tongue from Tigh.
"No sign of any dead, not even graves. A colony of this size, there should have been bodies. Everything that was recording cut off at the exact same time regardless of airgaps or other protections. A mystery made worse by the fact that everything here is older. The active biosphere did not help with preserving stuff, as much as it got a few of the different nerd groups arguing with each other" Adama mused.
"Hmm, you see this one yet?" Tigh pushed over a report.
"Yes, I skimmed it. Disturbing" Adama noted. Inside the report were details on such scenes as long burnt down houses or crashed tractors. Vehicles and appliances left running without human control to break and burn. As if those using them somehow vanished even from inside of sealed machines without a trace.
"I don't like the idea of something that can do this. Twice at least. If we find a third planet?" Tigh groused.
"It is like a ghost story, but all too real. We have an entire storeroom full of evidence and nothing that can be pointed to" said Adama.
Taking a sip Tigh spoke. "Well excuse me for wanting to find the thing that goes bump in the night, at least find something we could shoot at. If it bleeds then maybe we can kill it".
"But only if we find a third example. Then we can at least consider this as some sort of enemy action. Not that I expect those back at the Colonies to take this too seriously. We have rough dates for when this all was but, well politics" Adama sighed as he finished his drink.
A minute passed as Adama left to get a refill and came back. "You know, what if this is it? If we cannot find another example of this, this occurrence. We just find the rest of the 13th, we are obviously at the edges of their space" Adama asked his old friend.
"Spacer's tales. Never thought we would be living one" agreed Tigh before he thought of something else.
"Then we get to the messy bit back home. Dammed Peaceniks, you would think that learning about how many things are going bump in the dark would get them to actually do something. But it is just us here" said Tigh.
"Well not like we are getting anywhere that we can fix something like that. That is a young man's job. And what are we going to do? Throw battlestars at the problem? The Cylons are still no-shows, so we don't exactly have a reason for it, they are just going to say "reasonable defense" and not bother even just going to the boneyard to refit more survey ships. Besides who would believe in aliens really, especially when we only have a few movies and scraps of history books to prove they exist" Adama remarked.
"Think it is aliens that did this? Just plucked every human being off the planet at the same time?" asked Tigh.
Adama thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Unless these Scinfaxi changed their tactics then no. It certainly would have been messier if we consider the few examples we have".
Tigh looked at his empty mug and then plopped it down on the table. "You know, learning about aliens. If I was younger I would have a fire in my heart about this".
"Old, when did we get so old. Trying to find reasons to help stir the younger gens to do things, when it is usually the other way around Feh. I blame your brat, what did he say about maybe having a kid?" Tigh tried to switch topics, uncomfortable with continuing that line.
"Yes, I did mention that. I would like to be able to hold a grandchild, but I don't want to push that on him. I already did that enough in his life" Adama said as he remembered his at times wayward son's life. He had had to rethink where he was going in life after the near debacles that occurred.
"I look at the number of training accidents we have and worry, if he would have been just that number under some bean counter's eye on acceptable losses".
Tigh spoke up. "What did you expect, The Vipers have never been a service without hotheads all the way up".
Adama bitterly tipped his mug over to Tigh to get a splash of engine room grog from his flask. "To misguided energy. Cheers".
"Cheers" answered Tigh.
It was once again the quiet shift on the Galactica and a time for talk away from the junior staff. While a more official meeting would come later, the CO and XO wanted to get their thoughts out ahead of time. Especially considering the nerves much of the expedition was developing. Something especially poignant as Tigh slapped down a few folders on the plotting table.
"This boat ain't an insane asylum, but it certainly looks like it is going to be. That is the fifth negligent discharge incident we have had so far. The geeks would be more pissed off by the collateral damage to the buildings if they weren't so spooked themselves" Tigh groused.
The sight of a number of shot up murals and buildings captured in a few still frames. Adama made an agreeing grumble as he sipped from his mug of coffee. Swallowing, he spoke. "You cannot exactly blame them, they have been working for coming on four months. That is not a short deployment, especially with no real prospect for action. We might have stacked the crew with the near retirees but we have enough freshly graduated to not be taking the stress too well".
"And the vets are good at finding entertainment" Tigh grunts darkly amused.
Tigh then sighs. "From that view, yah. You would be right. Not exactly any port of call for them to really blow off steam. Its also that the planet is too creepy to really relax on. It's better when away from where the old settlements were but that doesn't mean people don't keep seeing grumpkins everywhere too". He tapped one of the open folders, an image of some scenery on top. Center of pride being a burning tree in the middle of a forest clearing, one that looked particularly ominous due to the ragged decorations it once had even before someone shot it up and started a forest fire.
"We could organize a few exercises, get some of the rust knocked off. Will need some precautions though, we don't really have the material for it" Adama mused.
"Don't want them to shoot up some random forest because they thought they were some creepy gribblies" barked Tigh.
Adama pointed to the other folder with a summary sheet for Tigh to read. "Creepy indeed. But we should move on to the actually pressing documented information. You remember how the entirety of the last colony stopped recording information at the exact same time across the entire planet?".
Tigh took a sip of his own mug of "enhanced" coffee as his eyes panned over the sheet. "Yeh, same thing here right?".
Adama nodded, which got a click of a tongue from Tigh.
"No sign of any dead, not even graves. A colony of this size, there should have been bodies. Everything that was recording cut off at the exact same time regardless of airgaps or other protections. A mystery made worse by the fact that everything here is older. The active biosphere did not help with preserving stuff, as much as it got a few of the different nerd groups arguing with each other" Adama mused.
"Hmm, you see this one yet?" Tigh pushed over a report.
"Yes, I skimmed it. Disturbing" Adama noted. Inside the report were details on such scenes as long burnt down houses or crashed tractors. Vehicles and appliances left running without human control to break and burn. As if those using them somehow vanished even from inside of sealed machines without a trace.
"I don't like the idea of something that can do this. Twice at least. If we find a third planet?" Tigh groused.
"It is like a ghost story, but all too real. We have an entire storeroom full of evidence and nothing that can be pointed to" said Adama.
Taking a sip Tigh spoke. "Well excuse me for wanting to find the thing that goes bump in the night, at least find something we could shoot at. If it bleeds then maybe we can kill it".
"But only if we find a third example. Then we can at least consider this as some sort of enemy action. Not that I expect those back at the Colonies to take this too seriously. We have rough dates for when this all was but, well politics" Adama sighed as he finished his drink.
A minute passed as Adama left to get a refill and came back. "You know, what if this is it? If we cannot find another example of this, this occurrence. We just find the rest of the 13th, we are obviously at the edges of their space" Adama asked his old friend.
"Spacer's tales. Never thought we would be living one" agreed Tigh before he thought of something else.
"Then we get to the messy bit back home. Dammed Peaceniks, you would think that learning about how many things are going bump in the dark would get them to actually do something. But it is just us here" said Tigh.
"Well not like we are getting anywhere that we can fix something like that. That is a young man's job. And what are we going to do? Throw battlestars at the problem? The Cylons are still no-shows, so we don't exactly have a reason for it, they are just going to say "reasonable defense" and not bother even just going to the boneyard to refit more survey ships. Besides who would believe in aliens really, especially when we only have a few movies and scraps of history books to prove they exist" Adama remarked.
"Think it is aliens that did this? Just plucked every human being off the planet at the same time?" asked Tigh.
Adama thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Unless these Scinfaxi changed their tactics then no. It certainly would have been messier if we consider the few examples we have".
Tigh looked at his empty mug and then plopped it down on the table. "You know, learning about aliens. If I was younger I would have a fire in my heart about this".
"Old, when did we get so old. Trying to find reasons to help stir the younger gens to do things, when it is usually the other way around Feh. I blame your brat, what did he say about maybe having a kid?" Tigh tried to switch topics, uncomfortable with continuing that line.
"Yes, I did mention that. I would like to be able to hold a grandchild, but I don't want to push that on him. I already did that enough in his life" Adama said as he remembered his at times wayward son's life. He had had to rethink where he was going in life after the near debacles that occurred.
"I look at the number of training accidents we have and worry, if he would have been just that number under some bean counter's eye on acceptable losses".
Tigh spoke up. "What did you expect, The Vipers have never been a service without hotheads all the way up".
Adama bitterly tipped his mug over to Tigh to get a splash of engine room grog from his flask. "To misguided energy. Cheers".
"Cheers" answered Tigh.
BSG: Discovery- The Power of a Map
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN1: Analysts back at the 13 Colonies of Kobol try to fill up the gaps of a puzzle that they have found, not knowing that they aren't the only looking at what was found.
"Well, this is the best map we got now. The combined collage of over a hundred different scanned scraps and recovered data fragments. Hundreds of workhours spent spatial referencing everything when we don't know the scale of half of those pieces", came the drawled voice of one Nik Giannides. Something that got the colonial think tank member smacked in the back of the head for. He turned away from the repurposed command board to glare half heartedly at his attacker.
Said head cracker being one Cassandra Apostolili, another member of the team and usually the group's lone sane person standing. Usually. "Can it with your sarcasm. We did the best we could. And we are probably still going to have to redo it when we get the next courier raptor full of more material" she finished by introducing her forehead to her hand as she heaved a sigh into the air before finally dramatically collapsing on a nearby chair.
"Yeah, maybe next try will not look like a jigsaw puzzle. I swear those jackasses are hoarding the actual complete maps and left us with this shit" said Elias Arvanitakos who thumped the table next to him with his thermos of discount coffee. His offended face as he took another sip was soothing to his friend Nik who had managed to get ahold of the non-dreg brewed batch. The impending petty slap fight between the two as they caught sight of each other's looks was derailed when Cassandra angrily went up to the board and started drawing on the clear surface with marker, highlighting some areas of the underlying map. She broke off with a huff after putting question marks in some areas.
"The only more complete maps are stellar navigation charts and those tend to cover small areas comparatively, do any of you know the high level math needed for that? No? Even if you do you need a higher level of clearance to even get a glimpse much less use them" Cassandra rebuked the two. She did not add the fact that the entire Colonial Survey Corp was getting upended trying to figure out how to even read the Hades damned things, they were not used to dealing with that scale of navigation. An entire arm of the galaxy compared to their tiny corner of things.
"Not got the security clearance my ass, we need more hands on the project then us three" groaned Elias as he looked at her work before he blearily got up to draw something on the board as well. This one being a mark between the well charted outskirts that held the current extent of colonial scouting missions. Mostly centered around the planet Gateway.
"Hah at least we get our sterling selves, imagine dealing with the idiots that manage a security clearance first and THEN a PHD" groused Cassandra as she remembered the sort of characters that were in the running to join their group.
"It's not great, but I would rather them than a particular other. I do not want to deal with that egomaniac Baltar, especially when he claims to be some all-knowing polymath" groused Nik as he gestured with his mug from where he flopped down in an adjacent chair. His movements earned a death glare from Cassandra as he tipped the mug a little too adventurously towards the board.
"Well, the man does have great ability, just not with this" said Elias weakly as he attempted to defend his distant fellow Aerilonian. He had actually shared a moment with the man over learning to get away from their native accents.
The other two huffed at his words. Cassandra in particular muttered not particularly quietly, "Dammed womanizer, thinking he is the Lord's gift to women. Oh, if I could file a restraining order". Her disgust filled grinding of teeth not unfamiliar to the others, moment or no moment they had not enjoyed the rest of that particular convention. Most of the different disparate groups working on the 13th colony problem had tried to set up some sort of cross-disciplinary cooperation. It did not work suffice to say.
"The man is a computer scientist; he should stay there with the rest of the code jockeys" Nik affirmed with distaste dripping from his lips.
"Heard he tried to chat up some of the grads to get some info on our project. Why I don't know" added Elias, deciding to cash out after seeing that his lackluster attempt would not go anywhere.
"Sadly, I doubt that is illegal, well maybe. I don't know," said Nik. His attempt to take out a flask got him glared at by Cassandra.
"Alright ladies, enough chatter around the fountain. Nik we need your thoughts on this here map. No, put down your coffee first" Cassandra tacked on as she watched Nik get up from his seat, rather dangerously unbalanced.
Nik grumbled something incoherently before complying. He got out his binder filled with images of the original data points and started comparing them to the changes they had marked on the board. "Well you can certainly see that the size of the different states is diverse. Some are tiny but are still clearly labeled alongside the others. Here, if we add some of what I think are common travel lanes to the board. Well, if we remember there was a cut off here and here. Hmmm . . ." he trailed off as a thought attempted to form in his head.
"Well, what do you have Nik" asked Cassandra as she stepped sideways to look at what he was concentrating on.
"Just wondering. Surely if they took the time to connect points for what are either systems or specific planets there had to be a reason. Our own drives come from the Lords, surely the 13th would have something like them when they had their exodus. So why connect places that are in different states as far as we can tell? Jump Drives don't need that, so is it just travel lanes on a stellar scale?" Nik wondered.
Elias moved to get a better look at some of the pictures before he started putting out ideas. "Maybe it is because they have different tech? Do we know the distance between systems? Maybe they created a different drive tech that works better for long ranges but doesn't let you freely move?".
Cassandra countered. "That assumes a wildly divergent development in tech, I could buy it socially since they have so many systems but is it really possible they made something wildly divergent like that? Especially if efforts are geared towards outward expansion over consolidation. Yeah, someone note that down". She added on.
"Surely having a different societal outlook would affect their tech development, by the Lords they probably don't have the regression we did from fighting the Cylons. OR maybe they received other gifts from them. Maybe they instead really created something new to have this sort of colonization process. Possibly separated because they grew too much. You could get so big you can't really have a single body of government, look at us. We still get naysayers for the Articles even now, like Sagittaron. Especially Sagittaron" said Elias hotly and with particular force. Cassandra bristled at that accusation towards her home and made to get into Elias' face. The news about the 13th was talking head fodder everywhere and every day, and had at times prompted dissidents to violent acts. Sagittaron being no exception on creating news events.
Holding his hand up in a gesture of calmness as he stepped between the others, Nik quickly drew attention to himself by gesturing back to the board. "Hey, hey. Chill. Remember our rules, ex nay on the patriotism. Back to work. Now, a thought I just had was if the map details could be denoting industrial or population-based ties? Or something about how old they are? An order of precedence and thus power from some starting point or a capital. We have a number of outposts that we aren't calling as part of the Twelve but are still getting support from their sponsors. Maybe they have had time to bring the daughter worlds up to spec enough to keep going forward with another child colony and on and on?".
Elias took a breath before he replied, swallowing his first response for a less charged one. "Maybe. Maybe that region of space just has alot of good shirt sleeve worlds. If they have easy access to agriculturally rich places, it could lead to population pressure. We have twelve worlds between two close binary systems, yet it is only Gemenon that is really called a breadbasket. We certainly haven't found another one like that from our own daughter colonies so far. Means the 13th had a need to spread out instead if they had more success that way. Give it some time and some break off, grouped up themselves, etc".
Cassandra flipped a sheet of paper from her own clipboard before speaking up. "Well, they certainly spread out then to have almost 200 worlds from the count we could get. Not to mention how many we might be missing from how we had to finagle everything into one map. Who knows how they really organized themselves beyond the names we found?".
Nik nodded before he walked to the shelf holding more prints, he took some out and tacked them to the board. "Yeah, look at what subdivisions we can find on this one" he pointed to one scrap that showed colored groupings set against each other. "This one seems to have the most visually distinct markers within a set border but maybe the others have something like them too?".
"Could, did we get the translations right? I'm not sure if some of the names are there because there was space or if the area around them is what they are the label for" Cassandra asked.
Nik flipped through some more documents. "Yeah let me see. This is the list of names we got without quite matching them to locations on the map. Okay we got the Empire of Nihon, Councilist Union, Bigger German State, and the Democratic Federation. Fun names"
"Definitely got something wrong there" drawled Elias this time.
Nik gave a Caprican salute, it was not a good thing.
Cassandra pushed his head to the side to get him to stop before taking a marker and trying to link names to places. "How do some of the smaller ones look?" she asked.
Nik started reciting. "Well, we mostly got the ones for the Democratic Federation when it comes to smaller names associated with it. We have three for sure with the United States of America, Peaceful States of America, and the French Republic. There is a fourth one there but it was apparently too smudged to read. Well then we got a few others scattered around to be read: the Submissive Arab Republic, United Centauri Republic, and Sol Sector Commercial Authority. Those are scattered around but are really just blips when it comes to repeat occurrences across our data set".
"Hmmm, well something for the linguists and data restoration groups to fix later. We put the map together, now they can get us better translators and pics if the bosses think our work sucks" grumbled Elias.
Cassandra airily waved her hand as she took out a few pictures to change the topic. "We should get to work again, noses to the grindstone and all that. What did you think of the nation crests? I really liked how simple the one with the tools is. I just wonder which nation it is associated with".
"Too simple, probably they are not with the biggest nation, or maybe that's the point. Too much effort to go with something more complex like the one with the bird" Elias wondered as he had a picture of a nation crest hovering over parts of the board.
"No, if that was the case the smallest one would have the most complex one. Less places to have to plaster it. Besides, I like the bird, it looks dignified" he continued.
"How about the one with all the stars, I doubt they are just random in number. Wonder what it represents, maybe a religious idol?" Nik threw out.
Cassandra sliced her hand across the air. "Hey, our other rule was no religion. We save that for later with more data points that shows it matters, so resign that idea to the backburner".
Waving her off Nik took a deeper look at the emblem. "Hmmm maybe 20 around and one or two overlaid in the center. Twenty-star systems around a core system, maybe even 20 stars around a binary pair? Twenty sectors around the capital cluster?".
Elias snorted. "Heh 22 stars, that would be a sure sign of the Lords more than our own".
Cassandra sighed. "Too bad, it would have been crazy to see if it existed. But unless its behind a nebula we would have found something like that already with the telescopes".
"Hmm, how far are we with that project, do you know? We could fill in some of the gaps we have in the map with that". Nik asked as he marked in a few more things.
"Not very far, its one of the projects that git Baltar is working on. Can't exactly count out all the stars by hand after all" came the aggrieved voice of Elias.
Dropping her latest binder of images on a table with a clang, Cassandra shook her head. "Well I know where I am keeping away from".
Nik looked at the clock and seeing the time decided to plop down on a chair and spread his arms wide as he mockingly spoke out. "Looks like our ten-minute break is coming up. Let's get back to our favorite slimy git to kick. That man, you see the tabloid about his latest bed notch? That is a woman that any red blooded man or woman would want on their arm. Say they were seen coming out of some tech firm together you know".
"Hmmmph, pigs" Cassandra said with faux condescension.
"Hey don't lie about someone you would love to have to yourself" Elias said with mock disapproval.
"50 cubits says she gets busted for industrial espionage. Another 50 says Baltar slides clean" put out Nik.
Cassandra noticing a ping from her pager motioned to the two to shut up. "Alright alright ladies, the next render should be done about now so we should get back to work soon enough. Get it sent to all our pads so we can cross check it at our leisure". Grumbling along none of them cared about the nondescript janitor who took away some of their garbage beyond a muttered thanks here or there. None there knew about the dead drop that had a few snapped pictures of things that was sent off along a few different channels. Especially when the ultimate destination was beyond the armistice line. Thousands of outwardly identical selves looking over the new developments with keen attention, and their own bickering of course.
"Well, this is the best map we got now. The combined collage of over a hundred different scanned scraps and recovered data fragments. Hundreds of workhours spent spatial referencing everything when we don't know the scale of half of those pieces", came the drawled voice of one Nik Giannides. Something that got the colonial think tank member smacked in the back of the head for. He turned away from the repurposed command board to glare half heartedly at his attacker.
Said head cracker being one Cassandra Apostolili, another member of the team and usually the group's lone sane person standing. Usually. "Can it with your sarcasm. We did the best we could. And we are probably still going to have to redo it when we get the next courier raptor full of more material" she finished by introducing her forehead to her hand as she heaved a sigh into the air before finally dramatically collapsing on a nearby chair.
"Yeah, maybe next try will not look like a jigsaw puzzle. I swear those jackasses are hoarding the actual complete maps and left us with this shit" said Elias Arvanitakos who thumped the table next to him with his thermos of discount coffee. His offended face as he took another sip was soothing to his friend Nik who had managed to get ahold of the non-dreg brewed batch. The impending petty slap fight between the two as they caught sight of each other's looks was derailed when Cassandra angrily went up to the board and started drawing on the clear surface with marker, highlighting some areas of the underlying map. She broke off with a huff after putting question marks in some areas.
"The only more complete maps are stellar navigation charts and those tend to cover small areas comparatively, do any of you know the high level math needed for that? No? Even if you do you need a higher level of clearance to even get a glimpse much less use them" Cassandra rebuked the two. She did not add the fact that the entire Colonial Survey Corp was getting upended trying to figure out how to even read the Hades damned things, they were not used to dealing with that scale of navigation. An entire arm of the galaxy compared to their tiny corner of things.
"Not got the security clearance my ass, we need more hands on the project then us three" groaned Elias as he looked at her work before he blearily got up to draw something on the board as well. This one being a mark between the well charted outskirts that held the current extent of colonial scouting missions. Mostly centered around the planet Gateway.
"Hah at least we get our sterling selves, imagine dealing with the idiots that manage a security clearance first and THEN a PHD" groused Cassandra as she remembered the sort of characters that were in the running to join their group.
"It's not great, but I would rather them than a particular other. I do not want to deal with that egomaniac Baltar, especially when he claims to be some all-knowing polymath" groused Nik as he gestured with his mug from where he flopped down in an adjacent chair. His movements earned a death glare from Cassandra as he tipped the mug a little too adventurously towards the board.
"Well, the man does have great ability, just not with this" said Elias weakly as he attempted to defend his distant fellow Aerilonian. He had actually shared a moment with the man over learning to get away from their native accents.
The other two huffed at his words. Cassandra in particular muttered not particularly quietly, "Dammed womanizer, thinking he is the Lord's gift to women. Oh, if I could file a restraining order". Her disgust filled grinding of teeth not unfamiliar to the others, moment or no moment they had not enjoyed the rest of that particular convention. Most of the different disparate groups working on the 13th colony problem had tried to set up some sort of cross-disciplinary cooperation. It did not work suffice to say.
"The man is a computer scientist; he should stay there with the rest of the code jockeys" Nik affirmed with distaste dripping from his lips.
"Heard he tried to chat up some of the grads to get some info on our project. Why I don't know" added Elias, deciding to cash out after seeing that his lackluster attempt would not go anywhere.
"Sadly, I doubt that is illegal, well maybe. I don't know," said Nik. His attempt to take out a flask got him glared at by Cassandra.
"Alright ladies, enough chatter around the fountain. Nik we need your thoughts on this here map. No, put down your coffee first" Cassandra tacked on as she watched Nik get up from his seat, rather dangerously unbalanced.
Nik grumbled something incoherently before complying. He got out his binder filled with images of the original data points and started comparing them to the changes they had marked on the board. "Well you can certainly see that the size of the different states is diverse. Some are tiny but are still clearly labeled alongside the others. Here, if we add some of what I think are common travel lanes to the board. Well, if we remember there was a cut off here and here. Hmmm . . ." he trailed off as a thought attempted to form in his head.
"Well, what do you have Nik" asked Cassandra as she stepped sideways to look at what he was concentrating on.
"Just wondering. Surely if they took the time to connect points for what are either systems or specific planets there had to be a reason. Our own drives come from the Lords, surely the 13th would have something like them when they had their exodus. So why connect places that are in different states as far as we can tell? Jump Drives don't need that, so is it just travel lanes on a stellar scale?" Nik wondered.
Elias moved to get a better look at some of the pictures before he started putting out ideas. "Maybe it is because they have different tech? Do we know the distance between systems? Maybe they created a different drive tech that works better for long ranges but doesn't let you freely move?".
Cassandra countered. "That assumes a wildly divergent development in tech, I could buy it socially since they have so many systems but is it really possible they made something wildly divergent like that? Especially if efforts are geared towards outward expansion over consolidation. Yeah, someone note that down". She added on.
"Surely having a different societal outlook would affect their tech development, by the Lords they probably don't have the regression we did from fighting the Cylons. OR maybe they received other gifts from them. Maybe they instead really created something new to have this sort of colonization process. Possibly separated because they grew too much. You could get so big you can't really have a single body of government, look at us. We still get naysayers for the Articles even now, like Sagittaron. Especially Sagittaron" said Elias hotly and with particular force. Cassandra bristled at that accusation towards her home and made to get into Elias' face. The news about the 13th was talking head fodder everywhere and every day, and had at times prompted dissidents to violent acts. Sagittaron being no exception on creating news events.
Holding his hand up in a gesture of calmness as he stepped between the others, Nik quickly drew attention to himself by gesturing back to the board. "Hey, hey. Chill. Remember our rules, ex nay on the patriotism. Back to work. Now, a thought I just had was if the map details could be denoting industrial or population-based ties? Or something about how old they are? An order of precedence and thus power from some starting point or a capital. We have a number of outposts that we aren't calling as part of the Twelve but are still getting support from their sponsors. Maybe they have had time to bring the daughter worlds up to spec enough to keep going forward with another child colony and on and on?".
Elias took a breath before he replied, swallowing his first response for a less charged one. "Maybe. Maybe that region of space just has alot of good shirt sleeve worlds. If they have easy access to agriculturally rich places, it could lead to population pressure. We have twelve worlds between two close binary systems, yet it is only Gemenon that is really called a breadbasket. We certainly haven't found another one like that from our own daughter colonies so far. Means the 13th had a need to spread out instead if they had more success that way. Give it some time and some break off, grouped up themselves, etc".
Cassandra flipped a sheet of paper from her own clipboard before speaking up. "Well, they certainly spread out then to have almost 200 worlds from the count we could get. Not to mention how many we might be missing from how we had to finagle everything into one map. Who knows how they really organized themselves beyond the names we found?".
Nik nodded before he walked to the shelf holding more prints, he took some out and tacked them to the board. "Yeah, look at what subdivisions we can find on this one" he pointed to one scrap that showed colored groupings set against each other. "This one seems to have the most visually distinct markers within a set border but maybe the others have something like them too?".
"Could, did we get the translations right? I'm not sure if some of the names are there because there was space or if the area around them is what they are the label for" Cassandra asked.
Nik flipped through some more documents. "Yeah let me see. This is the list of names we got without quite matching them to locations on the map. Okay we got the Empire of Nihon, Councilist Union, Bigger German State, and the Democratic Federation. Fun names"
"Definitely got something wrong there" drawled Elias this time.
Nik gave a Caprican salute, it was not a good thing.
Cassandra pushed his head to the side to get him to stop before taking a marker and trying to link names to places. "How do some of the smaller ones look?" she asked.
Nik started reciting. "Well, we mostly got the ones for the Democratic Federation when it comes to smaller names associated with it. We have three for sure with the United States of America, Peaceful States of America, and the French Republic. There is a fourth one there but it was apparently too smudged to read. Well then we got a few others scattered around to be read: the Submissive Arab Republic, United Centauri Republic, and Sol Sector Commercial Authority. Those are scattered around but are really just blips when it comes to repeat occurrences across our data set".
"Hmmm, well something for the linguists and data restoration groups to fix later. We put the map together, now they can get us better translators and pics if the bosses think our work sucks" grumbled Elias.
Cassandra airily waved her hand as she took out a few pictures to change the topic. "We should get to work again, noses to the grindstone and all that. What did you think of the nation crests? I really liked how simple the one with the tools is. I just wonder which nation it is associated with".
"Too simple, probably they are not with the biggest nation, or maybe that's the point. Too much effort to go with something more complex like the one with the bird" Elias wondered as he had a picture of a nation crest hovering over parts of the board.
"No, if that was the case the smallest one would have the most complex one. Less places to have to plaster it. Besides, I like the bird, it looks dignified" he continued.
"How about the one with all the stars, I doubt they are just random in number. Wonder what it represents, maybe a religious idol?" Nik threw out.
Cassandra sliced her hand across the air. "Hey, our other rule was no religion. We save that for later with more data points that shows it matters, so resign that idea to the backburner".
Waving her off Nik took a deeper look at the emblem. "Hmmm maybe 20 around and one or two overlaid in the center. Twenty-star systems around a core system, maybe even 20 stars around a binary pair? Twenty sectors around the capital cluster?".
Elias snorted. "Heh 22 stars, that would be a sure sign of the Lords more than our own".
Cassandra sighed. "Too bad, it would have been crazy to see if it existed. But unless its behind a nebula we would have found something like that already with the telescopes".
"Hmm, how far are we with that project, do you know? We could fill in some of the gaps we have in the map with that". Nik asked as he marked in a few more things.
"Not very far, its one of the projects that git Baltar is working on. Can't exactly count out all the stars by hand after all" came the aggrieved voice of Elias.
Dropping her latest binder of images on a table with a clang, Cassandra shook her head. "Well I know where I am keeping away from".
Nik looked at the clock and seeing the time decided to plop down on a chair and spread his arms wide as he mockingly spoke out. "Looks like our ten-minute break is coming up. Let's get back to our favorite slimy git to kick. That man, you see the tabloid about his latest bed notch? That is a woman that any red blooded man or woman would want on their arm. Say they were seen coming out of some tech firm together you know".
"Hmmmph, pigs" Cassandra said with faux condescension.
"Hey don't lie about someone you would love to have to yourself" Elias said with mock disapproval.
"50 cubits says she gets busted for industrial espionage. Another 50 says Baltar slides clean" put out Nik.
Cassandra noticing a ping from her pager motioned to the two to shut up. "Alright alright ladies, the next render should be done about now so we should get back to work soon enough. Get it sent to all our pads so we can cross check it at our leisure". Grumbling along none of them cared about the nondescript janitor who took away some of their garbage beyond a muttered thanks here or there. None there knew about the dead drop that had a few snapped pictures of things that was sent off along a few different channels. Especially when the ultimate destination was beyond the armistice line. Thousands of outwardly identical selves looking over the new developments with keen attention, and their own bickering of course.
Valkyria Chronicles x Steven Universe (Oneshot)- Two in One
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
AN1: There is perhaps more to the Ancient Valkyria of old then anyone truly realized.
It was a situation where things were going badly. At first it seemed like Squad 7 and the militia would make it. The desperate attempt to take out the forward radio post for the Imperial Rocket batteries had succeeded. A headlong charge by Squad 7 and other militia units managing to first retake the forward trenches from the Imperial forces before forcing an attack under covering fire into the enemy trenches. A desperate grenade enough to take out the radio equipment inside the enemy observation post. But even as the tanks arrived they ran into enemy fire. Alicia and several others were taking cover behind the Edelweiss when a terrifying screech came from an enemy shell impacting the tank as it advanced. The infantry having to scramble when the armored beast slewed suddenly to the side and ended up almost facing back towards their lines when it stopped.
Moments later Welkin was scrambling out of the tank, Isara being tugged in his arms. Everyone was screaming for a medic at the sight with Alicia throwing a smoke grenade in front of the disabled Edelweiss as others desperately tried to stem Isara's wounds with first aid. The armor of the tank had technically stopped the shell from going through, but the force had caused spalling to occur and a jagged shard of the protective metal was now claiming Isara's life. The piece of metal almost overlapping where she had the bullet wound from the Mulberry Shore battle. Rosie had taken the shot and been heavily injured, but her body slowed the bullet enough to allow Isara to live with only a scar and lingering pain. This time however it did not look like Isara would be making it, no matter how much those tending to her tried to ignore that and pray that the medic would arrive to actually save her life. As Alicia was holding Isara's hands and begging her to keep awake it happened.
"What, what is happening" she exclaims before somehow the two disappear.
A strange flash of azure light along with flashes of green light engulfed the two in a dazzling display. When everyone could see again they saw something strange. A green figure with strange blue addons holding a spiral grooved lance. It is shaped in an inhuman fashion, like some exotic doll maker's work. The limbs are strangely apportioned, the body obviously jointed, and the head is contained within some sort of headdress. There are floating pieces of crystal that seem to act as fingers, shifting around in the rough position of a hand as it clutches the spiral lance. The green figure has a crack through their body that everyone quickly realizes matches Isara's wound. But that is quickly pushed to the side as the figure advances on the battlefield, right into the direction that the Imperial Valkyria had been coming from.
"What are you?! No, it matters not. You are my foe this day! Have at thee!" cries Selvaria as she unleashes a stream of the azure energy they had last seen annihilate multiple tanks in a single sweep.
Instead this time it clashes with the outstretched lance before being tossed to the side as the free hand of the Green One shifts to unleash a wide beam of its own. But that first exchange was not the end. The two start to spar in displays of blue white energy alongside the occasional scorching burst of green energy. Each trying to probe and overwhelm the other to no avail. The clash is so great that none dare to interfere. It is all everyone else can do to hide in cover from the stray streaks of energy from the duel. Eventually however it is obvious that the Imperial is being pushed back. The two are moving at such speeds that afterimages are being left, but it is clear that the Green One has the advantage, capable of propelling herself in wild leaps into the air while using her off hand to hurl chunks of debris to block or distract the Imperial. The two are obviously running out of steam as their attacks are less and less expansive and eventually at some unknown signal the Imperial Valkyria scours a line into the ground to create a massive dust cloud. When the Green One clears the air with a sweep of her lance the Valkyria is nowhere to be seen.
Before anyone could act in someway the Green One collapses to the ground. Snapping out of it Welkin orders an advance with the Shamrock and the squad advances to find Isara and Alicia suddenly back, both unconscious beside each other on the ground. Fina having long arrived quickly rushes with her medical case of ragnite to the two. Acting quickly she deploys the tool and gets to work.
Welkin and Rosie arrive in a rush as the rest of the unit establishes a perimeter, not that there is much need. The Imperial forces are routed, falling back desperately as the rest of the battlefront has the Gallian forces throwing bodies for ground taken.
"Dam it Doc, work your magic please!" shouts Rosie as she takes up one of Isara's hands.
Welkin is a bit more contained, a bit. "She is going to be alright, Fina right?" he desperately begs.
Holding another Ragnite canister in her hands Fina nods. "If she doesn't go into shock she should be fine. I don't really understand what that was but it seemed to have stabilized her for now. We can patch the hole simply enough".
Beside her one of Fina's sisters is running a first aid capsule over Alicia, her minor cuts and bruises already healing before the additional ragnite has new flesh growing swiftly.
As the medics finish bandaging the two, stretchers arrive along with more Gallian forces. Squad 7 takes the opportunity to fall back. Some semblance of calm comes back as they see both Isara and Alicia stirring as they are moved. The sight of a strange gem embedded into Alicia's hand brushed aside for now. They are simply glad that they have yet again managed to avoid losing someone. They can try finding answers once everyone is back at base.
It was a situation where things were going badly. At first it seemed like Squad 7 and the militia would make it. The desperate attempt to take out the forward radio post for the Imperial Rocket batteries had succeeded. A headlong charge by Squad 7 and other militia units managing to first retake the forward trenches from the Imperial forces before forcing an attack under covering fire into the enemy trenches. A desperate grenade enough to take out the radio equipment inside the enemy observation post. But even as the tanks arrived they ran into enemy fire. Alicia and several others were taking cover behind the Edelweiss when a terrifying screech came from an enemy shell impacting the tank as it advanced. The infantry having to scramble when the armored beast slewed suddenly to the side and ended up almost facing back towards their lines when it stopped.
Moments later Welkin was scrambling out of the tank, Isara being tugged in his arms. Everyone was screaming for a medic at the sight with Alicia throwing a smoke grenade in front of the disabled Edelweiss as others desperately tried to stem Isara's wounds with first aid. The armor of the tank had technically stopped the shell from going through, but the force had caused spalling to occur and a jagged shard of the protective metal was now claiming Isara's life. The piece of metal almost overlapping where she had the bullet wound from the Mulberry Shore battle. Rosie had taken the shot and been heavily injured, but her body slowed the bullet enough to allow Isara to live with only a scar and lingering pain. This time however it did not look like Isara would be making it, no matter how much those tending to her tried to ignore that and pray that the medic would arrive to actually save her life. As Alicia was holding Isara's hands and begging her to keep awake it happened.
"What, what is happening" she exclaims before somehow the two disappear.
A strange flash of azure light along with flashes of green light engulfed the two in a dazzling display. When everyone could see again they saw something strange. A green figure with strange blue addons holding a spiral grooved lance. It is shaped in an inhuman fashion, like some exotic doll maker's work. The limbs are strangely apportioned, the body obviously jointed, and the head is contained within some sort of headdress. There are floating pieces of crystal that seem to act as fingers, shifting around in the rough position of a hand as it clutches the spiral lance. The green figure has a crack through their body that everyone quickly realizes matches Isara's wound. But that is quickly pushed to the side as the figure advances on the battlefield, right into the direction that the Imperial Valkyria had been coming from.
"What are you?! No, it matters not. You are my foe this day! Have at thee!" cries Selvaria as she unleashes a stream of the azure energy they had last seen annihilate multiple tanks in a single sweep.
Instead this time it clashes with the outstretched lance before being tossed to the side as the free hand of the Green One shifts to unleash a wide beam of its own. But that first exchange was not the end. The two start to spar in displays of blue white energy alongside the occasional scorching burst of green energy. Each trying to probe and overwhelm the other to no avail. The clash is so great that none dare to interfere. It is all everyone else can do to hide in cover from the stray streaks of energy from the duel. Eventually however it is obvious that the Imperial is being pushed back. The two are moving at such speeds that afterimages are being left, but it is clear that the Green One has the advantage, capable of propelling herself in wild leaps into the air while using her off hand to hurl chunks of debris to block or distract the Imperial. The two are obviously running out of steam as their attacks are less and less expansive and eventually at some unknown signal the Imperial Valkyria scours a line into the ground to create a massive dust cloud. When the Green One clears the air with a sweep of her lance the Valkyria is nowhere to be seen.
Before anyone could act in someway the Green One collapses to the ground. Snapping out of it Welkin orders an advance with the Shamrock and the squad advances to find Isara and Alicia suddenly back, both unconscious beside each other on the ground. Fina having long arrived quickly rushes with her medical case of ragnite to the two. Acting quickly she deploys the tool and gets to work.
Welkin and Rosie arrive in a rush as the rest of the unit establishes a perimeter, not that there is much need. The Imperial forces are routed, falling back desperately as the rest of the battlefront has the Gallian forces throwing bodies for ground taken.
"Dam it Doc, work your magic please!" shouts Rosie as she takes up one of Isara's hands.
Welkin is a bit more contained, a bit. "She is going to be alright, Fina right?" he desperately begs.
Holding another Ragnite canister in her hands Fina nods. "If she doesn't go into shock she should be fine. I don't really understand what that was but it seemed to have stabilized her for now. We can patch the hole simply enough".
Beside her one of Fina's sisters is running a first aid capsule over Alicia, her minor cuts and bruises already healing before the additional ragnite has new flesh growing swiftly.
As the medics finish bandaging the two, stretchers arrive along with more Gallian forces. Squad 7 takes the opportunity to fall back. Some semblance of calm comes back as they see both Isara and Alicia stirring as they are moved. The sight of a strange gem embedded into Alicia's hand brushed aside for now. They are simply glad that they have yet again managed to avoid losing someone. They can try finding answers once everyone is back at base.
BSG Discovery: Conferences and Sideroom Talks
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
BSG Discovery: Conferences and Sideroom Talks
By WyrmofFrost
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Dawn of Victory and related material are the property of their respective owners. I claim nothing that is not my own.
Laura Roslin found the current series of meetings to be extremely aggravating. What with being stuck as a glorified minute taker, forced to record the happenings of everyone quibbling over cubits and scrolls as the saying goes. Sadly, as Secretary of Education she was low enough on the totem pole to be dragged into the role, being a woman did not help matters in doing anything of worth at the "Convention on the Return and Reintegration of the Thirteenth Tribe". Constantly she had to sit here stewing as she was required to watch everyone pervert the sanctity of the world, the soon to be return of the prodigal son. She was dealing with this, this nonsense, rather than preparing to find and aid their obviously down on their luck brethren. Lives could be at stake and instead they were instead attempting to make as much money as possible off of victims. The 13th's scattered governments were obviously not taking care of so many people, why not the Colonies of Kobol? That might also be because of the preacher she often listened to, Cavil was a persuasive if otherwise dour individual on the radio networks. Still, she sympathizes with his views and finds it a worthy thing to do beside her other goal for martyrdom.
Scowling at her pad she gave it up for a bad job and returned to her musings, alternatively staring blankly at her lap and the room to not give the game away quite yet. What should have been an event to distribute and develop information on how to help the return to the fold of the Thirteenth tribe had turned instead into a massive horse-trading endeavor. All quibbling over the slivers of technology recovered or of the stores of translated material from the Galactica expedition. Still, these were some of the backers behind President Adar both amongst the political establishment and as funders, not that she had much respect for the man in the first place anymore. Not after what had been through.
She had to stop a moment, take a breath and have some water as her vision watered. The only sop to her dignity being to disguise the moment by wiping her forehead with her handkerchief. When she returned the piece of cloth it may have been both wet and scrunched. The memories were, not kind, it was still painful remembering. Made worse by being able to see him so close, talking and gesturing to his supporters. To have to still be around him when he demanded her resignation, after all she had done and all that they were . . . They had known each other for years, since that small town life. Oh, what had politics done to that man, and to her.
But she had already lost her career over the teacher's strike, she would see it through if it killed her. By the lords it was already literally killing her to do this, but she was going to actually leave behind a positive legacy for at least someone. Maybe the teachers would make a statue of her or at least not badmouth her when they taught history. Definitely had to make sure Adar never found out or as she so bitterly thought of the likely outcome, finding herself quietly shuffled off to some hospice to live out her days. That fate terrified her, and where once she thought he would not have been the sort to do so . . . Shaking her head she turned her eyes again to her surroundings. A morass having settled down in the air as the rest of the room had apparently also decided to take a short intermission for coffee and bagels. But they couldn't even do that without separating into their own little cliques and huddles she thought cynically.
Turning from the sea of folks in business suits that cost more than most families would make in a decade, she saw that the projector overhead was still on. The last presentation back at the start of the day was still being piped to the board, a list of topics to discuss as it was titled. Heh, that poor intern. Definitely did not know that he was in a room of fracking hungry sharks who did not care for charity of the common "good" as they might have thought. Common "good" to make cubits off of for sure, but not what you hoped for when someone was in charge of you. Then again just like that poor intern she too had been betrayed. She too had come here hoping to gain something from this, this should have helped the cause, not been turned into a mess. Maybe if she was able to speak their language of graft and favors, she could do so, but then she would never have stuck her neck out like that. Maybe donated some of her wealth to charity as a tax write off or some last will bequeathment, but not actually tried to make some sort of reform.
Hearing someone tap on a mic had her gaze return to the stage. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, let's try to get this show on the road again. Intermission is over. We are scheduled for another presentation now". Came the stalwart voice of the convention's hired speaker. A man with a heart of steel for what he did in patronizing that room full of powerful people.
At least said room hadn't devolved into five-year-olds just yet she could think caustically. The presentation intern seemingly drawing strength from his boss went back on stage and began to speak in his nasally voice. "We, we are resuming our preliminary report on 13th tribe technology recovered from the Galactic Expedition. Our, our next topic being their material science and how it compares to the Colonial, well Colonial understanding of the subject".
As the intern droned on, she found that again most of it was technical stuff she did not get but that obviously some people here did. Thankfully the biggest ticket item that was gone over was something she did get at least some of, reading the latest science digests for teachers counted for something here. Clean sustainable fusion power that ran on hydrogen rather than anything rarer. The dreams of some subsets of physicists and engineers, a move away from Big Tylium. Water desalination would be cheap and easy, civilian power without the need for polluting planetary strip-mines or hazardous asteroid mining. And they had only recovered scraps of the machines and their support infrastructure. The benefits were great for Colonial society, which of course meant everyone wanted a slice of the fruit to do so. Everyone begging to get whatever snippets were already uncovered from that.
She spotted big names such as Integral Systems Engineering, notable to her more for how cavalier the delegation's Aide was in asking questions and prolonging the convention. Well, she was also a woman so good on her the go getter, Gina something or other so she thought. She was even now asking about who would be getting access and under what sort of security clearance would be needed. It was obvious the poor boy did not have an answer to such a loaded question, simply meat for the room of hungry beasts.
When they could resume after the room settled down it was immediately broken again when the now latest controversy came out, the software. Specifically, the fragments of 13th programming that the Galactica Expedition recovered had suggested that the 13th had managed great strides in the sort of thing that the Cylon Rebellion had firmly shoved a foot down on. She considered herself a moderate on that issue, out of sight and out of mind was the policy and it had worked for her. She certainly didn't have any part in Adar's constant compromises and favor trading for that part of government. She could only distantly remember the days of VR suites and AR environments in schools, but that had mostly been a matter of the private schools. Certainly not something the underfunded public education department could get ahold of nowadays.
When the Speaker forced the room to adjourn, she found herself shuffled out to a small lounge room for a bit of peace from the migraine she had. But as she was seated on some chair massaging her forehead she could only groan as someone else entered. She recognized that one though not the other of the pair that just entered.
"Oh apologies, didn't realize that anyone was using this room. My name is Gina Inveire and this is my friend Renna. We just wanted to rest our feet somewhere away from the bottom feeders outside".
"It's alright, just don't speak too loudly please. I didn't exactly get out of things unscatched myself" Laura managed to get out somewhat haltingly as she weakly let a hand flop towards the other seats in the room.
"Oh, bad time? Here, a pick me up I like to carry around". The extended hand had a small gel tube in it. Laura could recognize it as a common headache med. Muttering a thanks, she grabbed the quick effect med and sucked out the contents. A minute later and she could feel the pounding reside and that she could now spare some time to pay attention to the new others in the room.
"Back amongst the living I see, oh I recognize you from the conference. What were you a Secretary of?" the brunette corporate asked, her blonde bombshell of a friend keeping quiet for now.
Laura feeling that it would be rude not to say something answered. "Education, secretary of Education. Not that it gets me much. If you want to schmooze, then don't expect much. I'm on the outs with Richard after all".
"Richard, wait. You mean the President!" the blonde exclaimed.
Laura could not help but snort at that sentence not exactly raising her opinion of the rich man's secretary stereotype. "Yeah, that is who I mean, like I said don't expect much out of me if you want to get ahead of the horse trading".
"I don't think that is all that you are is it? We have some time before the conference resumes. I certainly don't think that Education is a worthless thing, its how I can get where I have so far" came from the Gina woman while her apparent friend nodded along.
"She's right, Education is a basic right and should never be neglected. Especially now, I mean, have you heard all the pundits and what they say should be taught about the 13th now? Imagine that disaster happening, your job is now more important then ever". Hearing those insightful words did let Laura know that the other women actually had a thought in her head.
"You're not wrong. That has been something we have been discussing when possible, it's just all the hub hub means that I don't get much time to dedicate to it" she grudgingly let out.
"Hmmm, I heard about that before all of this. The teacher's strike right? I think that is going to have some serious knock-on effects with current events. We really need it resolved and soon, all those poor teachers are getting drowned out with the newest thing by the newsies" came Renna's voice, the still sultry tinge in it seemingly not able to be removed by her. Still a response.
"Hmmm, trying to butter me up with the promise of corporate funding I see?" Laura tried letting out.
"Guilty as charged, but it does help, doesn't it? We both represent voices that can speak to higher ups for our companies, companies that President Adar can't really ignore. A few opportunities for good press and tax breaks to the right ears could help greatly" Gina offered.
"A hard bargain. But one I actually have to consider. Give me some time would you?" Laura decided to hedge even if she was tempted.
"That's just fine. We can give you our contact info later. For now how about we move away a bit from the serious things. I remember you taking quite the extensive notes on things, could we get an early peak at the transcript? Or at least your thoughts on the convention's presentations? You can't deny how exciting everything is" Gina asked.
"Gina is right, so much information. It was almost too much at times. If it is nothing illegal, could we get a copy? Obviously only on what was spoken out loud" Renna added on.
Laura turned this newest development over in her still aching head before deciding that it didn't hurt. They obviously had the connections and clearance to be here in the first place, they wouldn't get anything secret. "Sure, I can give you some of my notes later. Same contact info?" she offered. Getting twin nods she started exchanging information only for all three to get alarms just as they were handing back their devices.
"Oh, the conference is about to start again. How about we walk over together" offered Renna as she slipped her pad back into her purse.
Laura nodded, not seeing any harm in it. "Sure, we don't want to miss out on anything actually important". At least she was out of her funk she could admit to herself as they exited the lounge. Perhaps things would be better in the future, she didn't need to waste her remaining time wallowing after all.
By WyrmofFrost
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Dawn of Victory and related material are the property of their respective owners. I claim nothing that is not my own.
Laura Roslin found the current series of meetings to be extremely aggravating. What with being stuck as a glorified minute taker, forced to record the happenings of everyone quibbling over cubits and scrolls as the saying goes. Sadly, as Secretary of Education she was low enough on the totem pole to be dragged into the role, being a woman did not help matters in doing anything of worth at the "Convention on the Return and Reintegration of the Thirteenth Tribe". Constantly she had to sit here stewing as she was required to watch everyone pervert the sanctity of the world, the soon to be return of the prodigal son. She was dealing with this, this nonsense, rather than preparing to find and aid their obviously down on their luck brethren. Lives could be at stake and instead they were instead attempting to make as much money as possible off of victims. The 13th's scattered governments were obviously not taking care of so many people, why not the Colonies of Kobol? That might also be because of the preacher she often listened to, Cavil was a persuasive if otherwise dour individual on the radio networks. Still, she sympathizes with his views and finds it a worthy thing to do beside her other goal for martyrdom.
Scowling at her pad she gave it up for a bad job and returned to her musings, alternatively staring blankly at her lap and the room to not give the game away quite yet. What should have been an event to distribute and develop information on how to help the return to the fold of the Thirteenth tribe had turned instead into a massive horse-trading endeavor. All quibbling over the slivers of technology recovered or of the stores of translated material from the Galactica expedition. Still, these were some of the backers behind President Adar both amongst the political establishment and as funders, not that she had much respect for the man in the first place anymore. Not after what had been through.
She had to stop a moment, take a breath and have some water as her vision watered. The only sop to her dignity being to disguise the moment by wiping her forehead with her handkerchief. When she returned the piece of cloth it may have been both wet and scrunched. The memories were, not kind, it was still painful remembering. Made worse by being able to see him so close, talking and gesturing to his supporters. To have to still be around him when he demanded her resignation, after all she had done and all that they were . . . They had known each other for years, since that small town life. Oh, what had politics done to that man, and to her.
But she had already lost her career over the teacher's strike, she would see it through if it killed her. By the lords it was already literally killing her to do this, but she was going to actually leave behind a positive legacy for at least someone. Maybe the teachers would make a statue of her or at least not badmouth her when they taught history. Definitely had to make sure Adar never found out or as she so bitterly thought of the likely outcome, finding herself quietly shuffled off to some hospice to live out her days. That fate terrified her, and where once she thought he would not have been the sort to do so . . . Shaking her head she turned her eyes again to her surroundings. A morass having settled down in the air as the rest of the room had apparently also decided to take a short intermission for coffee and bagels. But they couldn't even do that without separating into their own little cliques and huddles she thought cynically.
Turning from the sea of folks in business suits that cost more than most families would make in a decade, she saw that the projector overhead was still on. The last presentation back at the start of the day was still being piped to the board, a list of topics to discuss as it was titled. Heh, that poor intern. Definitely did not know that he was in a room of fracking hungry sharks who did not care for charity of the common "good" as they might have thought. Common "good" to make cubits off of for sure, but not what you hoped for when someone was in charge of you. Then again just like that poor intern she too had been betrayed. She too had come here hoping to gain something from this, this should have helped the cause, not been turned into a mess. Maybe if she was able to speak their language of graft and favors, she could do so, but then she would never have stuck her neck out like that. Maybe donated some of her wealth to charity as a tax write off or some last will bequeathment, but not actually tried to make some sort of reform.
Hearing someone tap on a mic had her gaze return to the stage. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, let's try to get this show on the road again. Intermission is over. We are scheduled for another presentation now". Came the stalwart voice of the convention's hired speaker. A man with a heart of steel for what he did in patronizing that room full of powerful people.
At least said room hadn't devolved into five-year-olds just yet she could think caustically. The presentation intern seemingly drawing strength from his boss went back on stage and began to speak in his nasally voice. "We, we are resuming our preliminary report on 13th tribe technology recovered from the Galactic Expedition. Our, our next topic being their material science and how it compares to the Colonial, well Colonial understanding of the subject".
As the intern droned on, she found that again most of it was technical stuff she did not get but that obviously some people here did. Thankfully the biggest ticket item that was gone over was something she did get at least some of, reading the latest science digests for teachers counted for something here. Clean sustainable fusion power that ran on hydrogen rather than anything rarer. The dreams of some subsets of physicists and engineers, a move away from Big Tylium. Water desalination would be cheap and easy, civilian power without the need for polluting planetary strip-mines or hazardous asteroid mining. And they had only recovered scraps of the machines and their support infrastructure. The benefits were great for Colonial society, which of course meant everyone wanted a slice of the fruit to do so. Everyone begging to get whatever snippets were already uncovered from that.
She spotted big names such as Integral Systems Engineering, notable to her more for how cavalier the delegation's Aide was in asking questions and prolonging the convention. Well, she was also a woman so good on her the go getter, Gina something or other so she thought. She was even now asking about who would be getting access and under what sort of security clearance would be needed. It was obvious the poor boy did not have an answer to such a loaded question, simply meat for the room of hungry beasts.
When they could resume after the room settled down it was immediately broken again when the now latest controversy came out, the software. Specifically, the fragments of 13th programming that the Galactica Expedition recovered had suggested that the 13th had managed great strides in the sort of thing that the Cylon Rebellion had firmly shoved a foot down on. She considered herself a moderate on that issue, out of sight and out of mind was the policy and it had worked for her. She certainly didn't have any part in Adar's constant compromises and favor trading for that part of government. She could only distantly remember the days of VR suites and AR environments in schools, but that had mostly been a matter of the private schools. Certainly not something the underfunded public education department could get ahold of nowadays.
When the Speaker forced the room to adjourn, she found herself shuffled out to a small lounge room for a bit of peace from the migraine she had. But as she was seated on some chair massaging her forehead she could only groan as someone else entered. She recognized that one though not the other of the pair that just entered.
"Oh apologies, didn't realize that anyone was using this room. My name is Gina Inveire and this is my friend Renna. We just wanted to rest our feet somewhere away from the bottom feeders outside".
"It's alright, just don't speak too loudly please. I didn't exactly get out of things unscatched myself" Laura managed to get out somewhat haltingly as she weakly let a hand flop towards the other seats in the room.
"Oh, bad time? Here, a pick me up I like to carry around". The extended hand had a small gel tube in it. Laura could recognize it as a common headache med. Muttering a thanks, she grabbed the quick effect med and sucked out the contents. A minute later and she could feel the pounding reside and that she could now spare some time to pay attention to the new others in the room.
"Back amongst the living I see, oh I recognize you from the conference. What were you a Secretary of?" the brunette corporate asked, her blonde bombshell of a friend keeping quiet for now.
Laura feeling that it would be rude not to say something answered. "Education, secretary of Education. Not that it gets me much. If you want to schmooze, then don't expect much. I'm on the outs with Richard after all".
"Richard, wait. You mean the President!" the blonde exclaimed.
Laura could not help but snort at that sentence not exactly raising her opinion of the rich man's secretary stereotype. "Yeah, that is who I mean, like I said don't expect much out of me if you want to get ahead of the horse trading".
"I don't think that is all that you are is it? We have some time before the conference resumes. I certainly don't think that Education is a worthless thing, its how I can get where I have so far" came from the Gina woman while her apparent friend nodded along.
"She's right, Education is a basic right and should never be neglected. Especially now, I mean, have you heard all the pundits and what they say should be taught about the 13th now? Imagine that disaster happening, your job is now more important then ever". Hearing those insightful words did let Laura know that the other women actually had a thought in her head.
"You're not wrong. That has been something we have been discussing when possible, it's just all the hub hub means that I don't get much time to dedicate to it" she grudgingly let out.
"Hmmm, I heard about that before all of this. The teacher's strike right? I think that is going to have some serious knock-on effects with current events. We really need it resolved and soon, all those poor teachers are getting drowned out with the newest thing by the newsies" came Renna's voice, the still sultry tinge in it seemingly not able to be removed by her. Still a response.
"Hmmm, trying to butter me up with the promise of corporate funding I see?" Laura tried letting out.
"Guilty as charged, but it does help, doesn't it? We both represent voices that can speak to higher ups for our companies, companies that President Adar can't really ignore. A few opportunities for good press and tax breaks to the right ears could help greatly" Gina offered.
"A hard bargain. But one I actually have to consider. Give me some time would you?" Laura decided to hedge even if she was tempted.
"That's just fine. We can give you our contact info later. For now how about we move away a bit from the serious things. I remember you taking quite the extensive notes on things, could we get an early peak at the transcript? Or at least your thoughts on the convention's presentations? You can't deny how exciting everything is" Gina asked.
"Gina is right, so much information. It was almost too much at times. If it is nothing illegal, could we get a copy? Obviously only on what was spoken out loud" Renna added on.
Laura turned this newest development over in her still aching head before deciding that it didn't hurt. They obviously had the connections and clearance to be here in the first place, they wouldn't get anything secret. "Sure, I can give you some of my notes later. Same contact info?" she offered. Getting twin nods she started exchanging information only for all three to get alarms just as they were handing back their devices.
"Oh, the conference is about to start again. How about we walk over together" offered Renna as she slipped her pad back into her purse.
Laura nodded, not seeing any harm in it. "Sure, we don't want to miss out on anything actually important". At least she was out of her funk she could admit to herself as they exited the lounge. Perhaps things would be better in the future, she didn't need to waste her remaining time wallowing after all.
BSG Discovery: View on the Street
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
BSG Discovery: View on the Street
By WyrmofFrost
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Dawn of Victory 2289 are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
Walking through the depths of Caprica City, young Nick was a college student. He had stepped out blearily into the early sun from his apartment, heading for the nearest coffee house. He hoped he had enough money on his meal plan to get more than just toast and coffee. He needed it after staying up so late. Nick, like many college students, was not good at planning for himself. Whether that be sleep, food, studytime, etc. Having blown through his stash of emergency food cubits to buy something off of Shady Sam the dorm's dealer was par for the course. Staying up all night on reruns, well at least it was the weekend. He had enjoyed the purchase greatly he could admit in a haze of general satisfaction and hunger. His next coherent thought being that he was going to share that experience with his best friend. Who knows maybe he could make a little of it back from renting the thing? That or as he suddenly had a thought, could have gotten a cheaper copy off someone else who had bought the thing.
Now feeling sad for himself as he got into the buffet line, he grabbed the cheapest but most filling things he could before hustling over to an empty corner table of the dining hall. Scarfing down his sad meal gave him enough energy to remember what sort of schedule his friend was likely on. That being sleeping off the night back at his dorm. Looking at his tiny wallet he grudgingly got some more. He would totally get the money back from him if he had to steal his friend's wallet to do so. That bastard Haris better appreciate him getting food for the lazy sod. Plonking his finished dishes on the conveyor he began treking back, food in hand. He scowled when the first sight upon entering the lobby again was a sign saying that the elevator was down for maintenance. He definitely did not get a notice about that at all!
Scowling as a few other early risers returned as well and they all shared a grumble at the nonsense and frakking mess. No longer in any good mood but not really seeing anything else he made his way up the stairs, several stories of them actually. His twiggy college legs were feeling it as he exited onto the fifth floor, the floor Haris had his room at. Taking a moment to let the sweat he worked up cool him off he swapped the bag of food to his off hand and knocked on Haris' door. Then knocked again when nothing happened. When no noise seemed to be coming Nick started thinking about kicking the door. Then finally he heard something through the door.
"Haris, you frakker. I got your breakfast. Wakie, Wakie!" he yelled out not caring about the rest of the floor.
That seemed to have galvanized Haris as the shuffling noises got louder and closer before the door opened and then knocked back shut. Nick could only look amused as Haris cursed and unlocked the security chain and finally swung the door open. "Nick you absolute piece of shit, why are you yelling!" Haris was not exactly quiet himself. Haris was dressed in a crumbled shirt and set of baggy pajama pants, his black locks flat in that bed hair stye.
"I need in for your cubits and to talk to you. Also, I brought food" Nick illustrated his point by moving the box of food to under Haris' nose.
"Fine" Haris then tried to take the box and slam the door shut. He sadly fumbled things. A point Nick made by sticking his raggedy steel toed shoes into the gap. He felt only a slight bonk as teh door slammed and was stuck.
"Come on, Haris old buddy old pal. No need for that" he drawled to the now sleepily glaring figure.
"This is too early for your frakking shit Nick. What do you want?" he muttered loudly and angrily, yet his eyes were now glued to the slowly swinging box of food in Nick's hand.
"Oh, just trying to be a good friend. Also wanted to come over to chat and I know you have free time now. Hey, I even brought that new film, you know the one that is all the rage on the Greynet" he dangled both verbally and literally with the food. Haris did not have much willpower to say no.
"Hah fine you utter ass, I'll play your game. Now let me go to the bathroom first, last night's drinks want to leave" Nick nodded and set the food down on the one table in the living room. Currently stacked with beer cans empty and unopened. Deciding he didn't want the smell of beer to hang around too long Nick grabbed the trash can and some towels from the kitchen. That sorted he had enough time to rummage to find Haris' wallet. Sure enough it was near the flat's phone, said phone being right outside Haris' bedroom. Grabbing some cubits for the trouble as he promised himself, he had just enough time to get back to the living room and sit down.
"Right, you jackass, did you actually get the film?" Haris grumbled as he came out in a mostly clean set of clothes. Laundry day was usually tomorrow for most of the campus.
"Indeed, I do, and here it is" he said as he held up the thumb drive with the pirated film. A small thrill in him still as he remembered that unlike most things this would actually get him in some trouble, and that so many had their hands on it that it didn't matter anymore. The Feds could suck it. It was just a film after all.
"Yeah I got it, the film of the whole alien tripods. Definitely not something you want to miss out. The 13th did not spare any cubits in making this thing and it shows even with the crap sack version everyone can get their hands on".
"Hey, you're already trying to spoil things for me. What the frak are tripods?" Haris complained as he sat down next to Nick as he fiddled with setting the film up.
"You asked; besides you can't not have heard anything about this already" Nick retorted.
"It's the principle of things. I want to be able to watch this in one go and not get stopped because your ass is providing commentary. We can do that later" Haris says.
Nick rocked his hand in reply and started the show, taking out his pen and taking a hit before passing it to Haris who took his share. Smoke swirled briefly through the air as the opening credits with the memorial scene played. Soon enough the action started. From the scene with the soldiers getting ready to the firing of the artillery. All the way to the montage of final stands. The final scene as they drifted away from Earth, well he took the opportunity to burn the view of the planet into his eyes. There were a few pics saying that they were historical images of Earth before this but, it was different. This was what Earth likely looked like now if the 13th never took back their homeworld.
"Dang, that was intense. Not the sort of movie you go see casually with friends" Haris admitted as the credits rolled. They missed alot of context, what with only the translated subtitles and no annotated commentary that apparently some versions of the film had. Still it was hauntingly powerful.
"Yeah, yeah it was, wasn't it? Think about the sorry bastards who have to fight skyscrapers on foot or in dinky tanks. We didn't even have that with the Cylons. And energy weapons, those things were rad. Sick of course since it was aliens, but rad. You need a fucking ship to fight that sort of shit. Or maybe our latest batch of Viper jockeys" Nick replied.
Haris snorted. "You see the last airshow the navy had? Those pilots would love to go one on one with those things. Though I don't think they have anything to actually kill one of those things, especially the big ones".
"You would think they would fall over if you hit them with enough of a big boom but I didn't see anything like that" remarked Nick.
Haris nodded. "Wonder why they didn't use ships? I mean collateral? There was only one city left and they weren't keeping the planet. Just blast everything outside the city, the alien fungus would have killed anyone left beforehand. And that last scene, they had some big honking ships didn't they?".
"Yeah I know, but then again. Would you be able to blow up Caprica, even if the Cylons were about to take it?" he asked that hard question.
Haris stopped for a second to think and came up blank. "You know, I don't know. I just don't".
"Hmmm, wonder what it would be like to be in one of those suits they had the PBIs in. I think I wouldn't mind being one if I had something like that. It would sure piss my parents off, no especially if it would piss my parents off". Nick wondered.
Haris took another hit of the pen before letting out his latest thought. "Mister mil family here, thinking he can get some piece of kit like that. Though I wouldn't mind getting under the hood of those tanks. Or that dropship, makes a Raptor seem puny".
"Hey, who knows. We are supposed to be making friends with the 13th right? I mean, surely the big wigs aren't going to do something stupid with the 13th? They have had a hard enough time and I don't think they would be that weak if we go in gung-ho" Haris put to Nick.
"I don't know, you haven't heard the stories I have. Someone might be just that stupid, then again I wonder what the Cylons are thinking? They have to have heard about the 13th by now right?" Nick asked in turn.
"Maybe, they certainly haven't shown up to talk ever. So who knows what the chrome domes are thinking. They aren't us that is for sure". Haris replied.
"Hmmm, ooh lets get some drinks. What you got in your fridge man? We need something after all that". Nick said as he got up to do so.
"Hey, thats my booze. But fine, I still got part of a case of beer. Snag me one why don't you?" Haris said. The two continued their usual weekend college life. Bigger thoughts taking a sidestep as they enjoyed their time away from parents and most of life's responsibilities. But life ticked on even without them.
By WyrmofFrost
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Dawn of Victory 2289 are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
Walking through the depths of Caprica City, young Nick was a college student. He had stepped out blearily into the early sun from his apartment, heading for the nearest coffee house. He hoped he had enough money on his meal plan to get more than just toast and coffee. He needed it after staying up so late. Nick, like many college students, was not good at planning for himself. Whether that be sleep, food, studytime, etc. Having blown through his stash of emergency food cubits to buy something off of Shady Sam the dorm's dealer was par for the course. Staying up all night on reruns, well at least it was the weekend. He had enjoyed the purchase greatly he could admit in a haze of general satisfaction and hunger. His next coherent thought being that he was going to share that experience with his best friend. Who knows maybe he could make a little of it back from renting the thing? That or as he suddenly had a thought, could have gotten a cheaper copy off someone else who had bought the thing.
Now feeling sad for himself as he got into the buffet line, he grabbed the cheapest but most filling things he could before hustling over to an empty corner table of the dining hall. Scarfing down his sad meal gave him enough energy to remember what sort of schedule his friend was likely on. That being sleeping off the night back at his dorm. Looking at his tiny wallet he grudgingly got some more. He would totally get the money back from him if he had to steal his friend's wallet to do so. That bastard Haris better appreciate him getting food for the lazy sod. Plonking his finished dishes on the conveyor he began treking back, food in hand. He scowled when the first sight upon entering the lobby again was a sign saying that the elevator was down for maintenance. He definitely did not get a notice about that at all!
Scowling as a few other early risers returned as well and they all shared a grumble at the nonsense and frakking mess. No longer in any good mood but not really seeing anything else he made his way up the stairs, several stories of them actually. His twiggy college legs were feeling it as he exited onto the fifth floor, the floor Haris had his room at. Taking a moment to let the sweat he worked up cool him off he swapped the bag of food to his off hand and knocked on Haris' door. Then knocked again when nothing happened. When no noise seemed to be coming Nick started thinking about kicking the door. Then finally he heard something through the door.
"Haris, you frakker. I got your breakfast. Wakie, Wakie!" he yelled out not caring about the rest of the floor.
That seemed to have galvanized Haris as the shuffling noises got louder and closer before the door opened and then knocked back shut. Nick could only look amused as Haris cursed and unlocked the security chain and finally swung the door open. "Nick you absolute piece of shit, why are you yelling!" Haris was not exactly quiet himself. Haris was dressed in a crumbled shirt and set of baggy pajama pants, his black locks flat in that bed hair stye.
"I need in for your cubits and to talk to you. Also, I brought food" Nick illustrated his point by moving the box of food to under Haris' nose.
"Fine" Haris then tried to take the box and slam the door shut. He sadly fumbled things. A point Nick made by sticking his raggedy steel toed shoes into the gap. He felt only a slight bonk as teh door slammed and was stuck.
"Come on, Haris old buddy old pal. No need for that" he drawled to the now sleepily glaring figure.
"This is too early for your frakking shit Nick. What do you want?" he muttered loudly and angrily, yet his eyes were now glued to the slowly swinging box of food in Nick's hand.
"Oh, just trying to be a good friend. Also wanted to come over to chat and I know you have free time now. Hey, I even brought that new film, you know the one that is all the rage on the Greynet" he dangled both verbally and literally with the food. Haris did not have much willpower to say no.
"Hah fine you utter ass, I'll play your game. Now let me go to the bathroom first, last night's drinks want to leave" Nick nodded and set the food down on the one table in the living room. Currently stacked with beer cans empty and unopened. Deciding he didn't want the smell of beer to hang around too long Nick grabbed the trash can and some towels from the kitchen. That sorted he had enough time to rummage to find Haris' wallet. Sure enough it was near the flat's phone, said phone being right outside Haris' bedroom. Grabbing some cubits for the trouble as he promised himself, he had just enough time to get back to the living room and sit down.
"Right, you jackass, did you actually get the film?" Haris grumbled as he came out in a mostly clean set of clothes. Laundry day was usually tomorrow for most of the campus.
"Indeed, I do, and here it is" he said as he held up the thumb drive with the pirated film. A small thrill in him still as he remembered that unlike most things this would actually get him in some trouble, and that so many had their hands on it that it didn't matter anymore. The Feds could suck it. It was just a film after all.
"Yeah I got it, the film of the whole alien tripods. Definitely not something you want to miss out. The 13th did not spare any cubits in making this thing and it shows even with the crap sack version everyone can get their hands on".
"Hey, you're already trying to spoil things for me. What the frak are tripods?" Haris complained as he sat down next to Nick as he fiddled with setting the film up.
"You asked; besides you can't not have heard anything about this already" Nick retorted.
"It's the principle of things. I want to be able to watch this in one go and not get stopped because your ass is providing commentary. We can do that later" Haris says.
Nick rocked his hand in reply and started the show, taking out his pen and taking a hit before passing it to Haris who took his share. Smoke swirled briefly through the air as the opening credits with the memorial scene played. Soon enough the action started. From the scene with the soldiers getting ready to the firing of the artillery. All the way to the montage of final stands. The final scene as they drifted away from Earth, well he took the opportunity to burn the view of the planet into his eyes. There were a few pics saying that they were historical images of Earth before this but, it was different. This was what Earth likely looked like now if the 13th never took back their homeworld.
"Dang, that was intense. Not the sort of movie you go see casually with friends" Haris admitted as the credits rolled. They missed alot of context, what with only the translated subtitles and no annotated commentary that apparently some versions of the film had. Still it was hauntingly powerful.
"Yeah, yeah it was, wasn't it? Think about the sorry bastards who have to fight skyscrapers on foot or in dinky tanks. We didn't even have that with the Cylons. And energy weapons, those things were rad. Sick of course since it was aliens, but rad. You need a fucking ship to fight that sort of shit. Or maybe our latest batch of Viper jockeys" Nick replied.
Haris snorted. "You see the last airshow the navy had? Those pilots would love to go one on one with those things. Though I don't think they have anything to actually kill one of those things, especially the big ones".
"You would think they would fall over if you hit them with enough of a big boom but I didn't see anything like that" remarked Nick.
Haris nodded. "Wonder why they didn't use ships? I mean collateral? There was only one city left and they weren't keeping the planet. Just blast everything outside the city, the alien fungus would have killed anyone left beforehand. And that last scene, they had some big honking ships didn't they?".
"Yeah I know, but then again. Would you be able to blow up Caprica, even if the Cylons were about to take it?" he asked that hard question.
Haris stopped for a second to think and came up blank. "You know, I don't know. I just don't".
"Hmmm, wonder what it would be like to be in one of those suits they had the PBIs in. I think I wouldn't mind being one if I had something like that. It would sure piss my parents off, no especially if it would piss my parents off". Nick wondered.
Haris took another hit of the pen before letting out his latest thought. "Mister mil family here, thinking he can get some piece of kit like that. Though I wouldn't mind getting under the hood of those tanks. Or that dropship, makes a Raptor seem puny".
"Hey, who knows. We are supposed to be making friends with the 13th right? I mean, surely the big wigs aren't going to do something stupid with the 13th? They have had a hard enough time and I don't think they would be that weak if we go in gung-ho" Haris put to Nick.
"I don't know, you haven't heard the stories I have. Someone might be just that stupid, then again I wonder what the Cylons are thinking? They have to have heard about the 13th by now right?" Nick asked in turn.
"Maybe, they certainly haven't shown up to talk ever. So who knows what the chrome domes are thinking. They aren't us that is for sure". Haris replied.
"Hmmm, ooh lets get some drinks. What you got in your fridge man? We need something after all that". Nick said as he got up to do so.
"Hey, thats my booze. But fine, I still got part of a case of beer. Snag me one why don't you?" Haris said. The two continued their usual weekend college life. Bigger thoughts taking a sidestep as they enjoyed their time away from parents and most of life's responsibilities. But life ticked on even without them.
A Big Discovery Part 01: Warhammer 40k & nBattlestar Galactica crossover
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
A Big Discovery Part 01: Warhammer 40k & nBattlestar Galactica crossover
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Warhammer 40k and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
William "formerly Callsign Husker" Adama could admit only a few times in his life that he had felt such a feeling. A feeling of being dwarfed by something. He was feeling it now as the stills of the ship were pinned up for view in the CIC. There was a speck of light that was a flight of Vipers and a more useful scale markered in. The even now still proud vessel was larger than even three of the new Mercury classes stacked lengthwise and could probably blow them out of the water one after the other. It was not something like a civilian mega hauler, it was a warship. The three sectioned gun decks each near the size of the Galactica proved that. The forward underslung gun alone looked like it could put a hole straight through even a Cylon Basestar's main section and do the same to the next few in line.
It had quite the ostentatious color scheme with what was once a pure white prow like a ramming galley of old with what could not possibly be an actual gold prowhead shaped into an eagle's beak. The entire hull was pockmarked by weapon impacts big and small with numerous massive gouges and blasted open sections. Someone had already tried measuring the armor belt from photo stills and it was definitely a ship that could take a beating, only the largest nuclear warheads could possibly deal a mortal blow with anything smaller capable of being shrugged off. So seeing it laid low yet somehow seemingly still intact, terrifyingly awesome even through the lower quality images from Raptor guncams.
"How did that thing show up here?" muttered his old friend Tigh, uncharacteristically sober as he considered the "Unusual Signature" they were here to investigate near the Truce Line. Their ship was sufficiently famed to hopefully dissuade the Cylons but not actually considered too important to not be lost doing this. The crew included he darkly noted in the back of his mind.
"I would say that that is our mission, but . . ." Tigh nodded at his deliberately cut off words. This was a mission assigned by High Command, but they were feeling distinctly inadequate for the task after being diverted from their patrol mission.
"Its not Tylium from the scans at least, not a spec of Tylium on that ship from the scans" Tigh added on. Which likely meant that this was not a ship of the Lords, the original ark ships had had Tylium drives as far as he knew of the topic.
"That is still a small city" Adama muttered. Even with the largest automation possible, and didn't that thought bring a grimace to his face, that ship could potentially hold a massive crew if not an onboard complement of troops. Certainly did not have much dedicated hanger capacity from the looks of it, though what bays could be seen were massive.
"We probably won't have to deal with a small city" Tigh admitted faux confidently. Adama's silence held a message all its own for his thoughts on the matter.
"Sir, Raptors report that the second phase of sensor sweeps has been completed. We have mapped the orbital debris clouds enough for the next phase" reported the sensor station operator.
"Guess that means the scavs couldn't have actually taken everything shiny off of it. That prowhead for sure is still there" Tigh spoke out to fill the silence in the quietly industrious CIC after taking in the new chart on the plotting table.
"I worry if we are truly the only one's here to investigate anyway, even if others have not come in force that doesn't mean that there is a fleet bearing down on us" Adama spoke out. His squadrons were split between mapping, troop transport, and picket duty. The Galactica wasn't anything like a Mercury class Battlestar, it didn't have the capacity to do this without leaving gaps. Too close, they were too close to the Line. But nothing else was detected by either Galactica's DRADIS or their own patrolling craft so he could only keep a stoic face for the crew.
"Our Master at Arms told the marines to load for Cylon. They've been bored in that way only marines can be, better to have them over there then stewing here still and breaking things" Tigh dryly responded. Adama grunted amused as his mind carefully shelved the thought that a small company of marines wouldn't be accomplishing much on a ship of that size. HIs mood was too pessimistic, but considering that this would likely be his last major operation and it was confined to boarding, nothing he could do to affect operations yet still to bear all the failure and death if it went wrong.
Adama picked up the phone, there was no use worrying when he wasn't the one actually being sent in. "This is the Commander. Final check on Viper Beta, Raptor Gamma, and Reserve forces".
"Go" "Go" "We are Go" were the serial replies.
"May the Gods be with you. Mission start, now" Adama finished. He carefully returned the bulky hand phone to its cradle, a breath having to be forcibly sucked in and out as he loosened his tightly gripped hands. "May the Gods be with us" he softly murmured. Few times did he have faith, mostly putting such matters out of mind. But now seemed as good a time as any to get rid of his lapsed belief.
Within the hanger bays of the ship several Raptors were launched, their configuration set for sensor duty to help detect any smaller debris outside of the already mapped out debris clouds. The troop loaded Raptors would be heading through one of the breaches near an identified hanger door, their goal to hopefully be able to open up the hanger to let in most of the waiting forces, otherwise it would be a hazardous job to slowly ferry troops in through scattered holes. Even if said holes were massive, they still were not particularly suitable for people to enter through.
Within Raptor 321 which had been the first craft cleared to start landing troops departed teh Galactica's bay and vectored on its pre-planned path. Vipers flew by in escort, no action had occurred nor even any sign of life at all but they still kept circling the outgoing small craft. Within 321 the eight embarked marines went through their little pre-mission tics. Hands tapping out inane tunes, eyes closed as final prayers were recited, or otherwise trying not to let their bulky space-suited bodies grate on their nerves. The tight space was made worse by all the extra paraphernalia its passengers had along with the packed cargo spaces. Spare ammunition, extra tools, even deployable fortification equipment. Whatever could be of use in the oncoming op.
"Don't worry, we can handle the mission just fine they said. We got this, they said. Well we certainly do, except for escorting any techies, that not so much" grumbled one Fire team leader Myron Sarantou to himself. Stuck where he was because of too many 'incidents' with superior officers but he personally didn't mind. He was too much of a rough and ready individual to shepherd more than a handful of newbies if he did get promoted.
Patting his rifle again Myron gazed over at the others in his team. It wasn't one that could be called green as grass. Nikolas Mitrotis was another aging vet, older then Myron in fact and had survived everything that the Cylons had thrown at him. He had the SAW for the team, the heavy variant of their rifle could clear out an entire room and still have spares for the next. Anna Lillakis meanwhile was a fellow marine, they had served together on the Galactica for years. A deft hand with explosives, she had not skimped on her loadout for the mission. The other fireteam was also three people, their fourth members having been shuffled off to the next wave with the next wave of supplies. He had gotten cursory introductions from the two techies but hoped that would be it. Myron didn't want the mission to go sour enough that he needed that sort of information on hand.
"Right folks, we are making our final approach. Prep for some turbulence because Beagle Airlines is about to face some turbulence". Myron gritted his teeth as the others shifted at that announcement from the pilot. "Karking Raptor jockeys, wish they were Viper pilots" he murmured within the confines of his helmet.
True to those words the craft shook, its inertial dampeners letting enough force bleed through to show that some tricky maneuvers were underway. When the shaking finally stopped the pilot came back on the speaker. "Kay folks, you know the drill. Opening the doors cuz you don't get the nice way off the boat".
The raptor bay was already decompressed so nothing flew out as the marines left the ship at a quick pace and weapons held at the ready. Though there was no atmosphere, the ship did have gravity still active so there wasn't a need for the mag boots. The left pathway of the corridor they had entered was blocked by debris so they all went west. Myron looked out in the darkness, his vision limited only to the area that the IR spotlight on his suit or the smaller version attached to his rifle could illuminate for his helmet mounted filters to parse. Nothing seemed to move, the area being only strangely ornate corridor walls before they came to a sealed bulkhead. Low level illumination strips marked out the gateway and served as the only source of visible light in the entire corridor. Just enough light to cast the closed bulkheads in an ominous light. Alcoves laid on either side of the doors, empty though wires could be seen protruding from them. The doors themselves had a strange double headed aquila symbol with what seemed oddly like desiccated pieces of paper and wax attached to the surface. Neither could possibly have withstood vacuum so it should have been something else. Still not what one expected on a warship.
Myron spared a glance over to the techies and spoke up on the com. "Area is clear, we have a big set of bulkhead doors here. Don't look like we can get in without killing ourselves with the amount of explosives that would take. Can we cut it open or find some other way in?" he asked.
Anna and Nikolas, who had been mostly silent, chose to start bantering. "You notice the way they did the decorating?" remarked Anna. Nikolas snorted, "Seems like the inside of a temple with all the columns and inscriptions. I don't recognize any of the script, but it seems like how they would have passages from the Scrolls be plastered everywhere".
"Yeah, definitely don't look Kobolian. I had a bit of Ancient Kobolian from when I was in a temple school, none of this looks close to that. Think we found aliens?" replied Anna.
"Nah, or if did they found humans before. Pretty sure there are bones inset into places here. They look pretty human to me" was the morbid reply of Nikolas, no one asked where he could recognize human bone from.
"Can it for now, I don't want your chatter in my ear for this convo" barked Myron into their team net.
During their chat one of the techies brought out some sort of sensor on a stick that they waved over the area, the search taking long minutes since the corridor was more the size of a small town's street. You could fit a car comfortably down the path with room to spare on either side for pedestrians. Finally though they spoke up. The techy grunted into the comnet before speaking with a picon accent, her voice gruff and no-nonsense. "Yeah, it would take an hour to cut through and that is if our drill is up to spec. I don't know what they made the doors of but I think there are vaults that are weaker than this. Still there seems like some sort of maintenance accessway along the walls. Give me a minute to see if we have a door on our stretch or if we need to blast in".
It was more uncomfortable minutes of waiting that Myron had the other two on his team help the second techy finish unloading the Raptor. Finally though they managed to find a doorway. One that rather creepily had what couldn't have been an actual cybernetics laced skull set where one would have the access panel. The techy, Petrelis, who Myron finally bothered looking at their tag, snorted at the sight. "Right, obviously I got no way in the non explosive way so give me a sec to find the right way to lay charges".
By that time the others had arrived to join them, some portable cover being trundled into position. The half a man sized pieces of metal were rigged up and the group hid behind them when the charges went. After the muffled shockwave passed they checked over their handiwork. Whatever the wall was made of sent much of the charge back but was still weakened enough for some breaching mattock blows to finally crack the door open. A hiss of old air escaped into the corridor with each strike as grunts could be heard over the comnet. The door fell with an audible thump to their audio pickups before the group carefully went in, the walkway seemed like what one could find on the Galactica if layered with odd flyers that seemed to mimic parchment and more of the wax seals littered over the area. Long stretches of corridor had odd marks like someone had taken a blowtorch and done graffiti with it, odd geometric shapes or undulating lines of repeating dots or dashes were overlaid on top of each other.
The group proceeded until they found the next door that would take them behind the sealed bulkheads. This time the door could be opened from the inside much easier than the outside, though the techs brought some portable grates to seal out the open ends of the maintenance ways. Breaching back into the main corridor found them facing yet more bulkheads, this time because it was obviously a crossroad, there was the direction they came from and then three more off into cardinal directions. The square they found themselves in could have been a small building's parking lot from the size, there was some sort of grated building front like what one could find in a shop on one of the walls. Scattered bits of unidentifiable debris were littering the area, no one had obviously been here in some time from the dust though the air still weakly moved from some unseen vent system.
Myron looked to the techies who had been laying cable during their wait for the all clear. Petrelis nodded to him with her helmet before speaking into the comms. "Right that is the hardline to the relay, we can speak to the Raptor and then onward to the Galactica". Giving an acknowledgment, Myron reported their situation. The Captain back on the ship accepted the words before relaying that the next wave of Raptors were heading over. Their job was to find someplace defensible to hole up in and use as a base camp for the next phase of the operation.
Myron not seeing much of an option, signed for a breach at the shuttered building front. The team stacked up on the closed entryways and eventually Petrelis' duo found a mechanical lock for the shutters. Her toolbag ended up spread out on the floor as she attempted to unlock the gate. Still she made it in eventually and Myron had his gun trained on the slowly growing entry as the doors were carefully opened. No shots came out and Myron spotted an obvious set of countertops and chairs in the revealed room. Feeling clammy in his suit he signaled forward.
The building was quickly breached. Their way was speedy until they found the last room upstairs, unlike the others this was locked. Petrelis not finding anything trap related in an inspection set herself to breaking in. This time their weapons had a ready target to cross over. Said target was a humanoid bundle propped on the wall, the dried bloodstain that could be picked out from their NOFs making it readily apparent that it wasn't an active threat.
"Right everyone get your flashlights on. I don't think we need to use NOFs anymore. You two check the room over, I'll go watch the techies" Myron ordered before leaving to follow through on his words.
The two left in the room drifted over to the hunched over corpse after only seeing filing cabinets and a desk in the room. A portable lamp was set up on the desk in the room as the two trained the spotlights on their suits onto the corpse. "Frak" Anna let into the person to person comms. "That looks human for sure". Said corpse was dressed in some sort of jumpsuit, a rather poor quality one not meant for vacuum from the lack of seals. Strange symbols and trinkets littered the body, most prominent being another aquila shaped in a pendant gripped in the other hand of the corpse like it was the most important thing in their life.
Anna reached out a hand to touch it before retracting it, feeling goosebumps crawl up her arm when she reached out to the pendant. Her gaze moved instead to the gun, this time able to tug the thing onto the floor out of the corpse's hand with some effort. Meanwhile Nikolas had leaned over the corpse for a look himself.
"Don't look like any gunshot I know of, nor any gun to boot" was Nikolas' remark. His words weren't wrong, the obvious wound did not have the dimensions of a gunshot even as desiccated as it was. Anna looked back to the weapon she had laid out on the floor. The gun was some sort of revolver, but not one that anyone recognized. In place of the hammer on a revolver was some sort of striker assembly, not a mechanical one seemingly. A tab of some sort stuck out of the grip but it didn't seem like a magazine, not on the revolver looking contraption. Nikolas crouched down and slung his gun to pick up the weapon.
Carefully keeping the barrel away from anyone he inspected it for controls, one lever seemed to be the release as the weapon broke open and the barrel extracted some sort of cartridge. A faintly glowing bar seemed to be an indicator of some sort on the apparent power cell. Closing the weapon back up Nikolas pointed the weapon at a bare wall. "Nik" lowly warned Anna but the man pulled the trigger anyway. What came out was not a bullet, no it was a laser. Dribbles of molten metal leaked from the crater burnt into the wall, acrid smoke floated away as the group stared at the handheld laser gun.
"What the frak sort of ship are we on" remarked Anna. "Frak" was Nikolas' emphatic response. "What did you two jokers do?!" came Myron on the comms along with his thundering steps up the stairs.
"You are explaining this" dryly noted Anna. This was a splendid start to their mission.
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Warhammer 40k and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
William "formerly Callsign Husker" Adama could admit only a few times in his life that he had felt such a feeling. A feeling of being dwarfed by something. He was feeling it now as the stills of the ship were pinned up for view in the CIC. There was a speck of light that was a flight of Vipers and a more useful scale markered in. The even now still proud vessel was larger than even three of the new Mercury classes stacked lengthwise and could probably blow them out of the water one after the other. It was not something like a civilian mega hauler, it was a warship. The three sectioned gun decks each near the size of the Galactica proved that. The forward underslung gun alone looked like it could put a hole straight through even a Cylon Basestar's main section and do the same to the next few in line.
It had quite the ostentatious color scheme with what was once a pure white prow like a ramming galley of old with what could not possibly be an actual gold prowhead shaped into an eagle's beak. The entire hull was pockmarked by weapon impacts big and small with numerous massive gouges and blasted open sections. Someone had already tried measuring the armor belt from photo stills and it was definitely a ship that could take a beating, only the largest nuclear warheads could possibly deal a mortal blow with anything smaller capable of being shrugged off. So seeing it laid low yet somehow seemingly still intact, terrifyingly awesome even through the lower quality images from Raptor guncams.
"How did that thing show up here?" muttered his old friend Tigh, uncharacteristically sober as he considered the "Unusual Signature" they were here to investigate near the Truce Line. Their ship was sufficiently famed to hopefully dissuade the Cylons but not actually considered too important to not be lost doing this. The crew included he darkly noted in the back of his mind.
"I would say that that is our mission, but . . ." Tigh nodded at his deliberately cut off words. This was a mission assigned by High Command, but they were feeling distinctly inadequate for the task after being diverted from their patrol mission.
"Its not Tylium from the scans at least, not a spec of Tylium on that ship from the scans" Tigh added on. Which likely meant that this was not a ship of the Lords, the original ark ships had had Tylium drives as far as he knew of the topic.
"That is still a small city" Adama muttered. Even with the largest automation possible, and didn't that thought bring a grimace to his face, that ship could potentially hold a massive crew if not an onboard complement of troops. Certainly did not have much dedicated hanger capacity from the looks of it, though what bays could be seen were massive.
"We probably won't have to deal with a small city" Tigh admitted faux confidently. Adama's silence held a message all its own for his thoughts on the matter.
"Sir, Raptors report that the second phase of sensor sweeps has been completed. We have mapped the orbital debris clouds enough for the next phase" reported the sensor station operator.
"Guess that means the scavs couldn't have actually taken everything shiny off of it. That prowhead for sure is still there" Tigh spoke out to fill the silence in the quietly industrious CIC after taking in the new chart on the plotting table.
"I worry if we are truly the only one's here to investigate anyway, even if others have not come in force that doesn't mean that there is a fleet bearing down on us" Adama spoke out. His squadrons were split between mapping, troop transport, and picket duty. The Galactica wasn't anything like a Mercury class Battlestar, it didn't have the capacity to do this without leaving gaps. Too close, they were too close to the Line. But nothing else was detected by either Galactica's DRADIS or their own patrolling craft so he could only keep a stoic face for the crew.
"Our Master at Arms told the marines to load for Cylon. They've been bored in that way only marines can be, better to have them over there then stewing here still and breaking things" Tigh dryly responded. Adama grunted amused as his mind carefully shelved the thought that a small company of marines wouldn't be accomplishing much on a ship of that size. HIs mood was too pessimistic, but considering that this would likely be his last major operation and it was confined to boarding, nothing he could do to affect operations yet still to bear all the failure and death if it went wrong.
Adama picked up the phone, there was no use worrying when he wasn't the one actually being sent in. "This is the Commander. Final check on Viper Beta, Raptor Gamma, and Reserve forces".
"Go" "Go" "We are Go" were the serial replies.
"May the Gods be with you. Mission start, now" Adama finished. He carefully returned the bulky hand phone to its cradle, a breath having to be forcibly sucked in and out as he loosened his tightly gripped hands. "May the Gods be with us" he softly murmured. Few times did he have faith, mostly putting such matters out of mind. But now seemed as good a time as any to get rid of his lapsed belief.
Within the hanger bays of the ship several Raptors were launched, their configuration set for sensor duty to help detect any smaller debris outside of the already mapped out debris clouds. The troop loaded Raptors would be heading through one of the breaches near an identified hanger door, their goal to hopefully be able to open up the hanger to let in most of the waiting forces, otherwise it would be a hazardous job to slowly ferry troops in through scattered holes. Even if said holes were massive, they still were not particularly suitable for people to enter through.
Within Raptor 321 which had been the first craft cleared to start landing troops departed teh Galactica's bay and vectored on its pre-planned path. Vipers flew by in escort, no action had occurred nor even any sign of life at all but they still kept circling the outgoing small craft. Within 321 the eight embarked marines went through their little pre-mission tics. Hands tapping out inane tunes, eyes closed as final prayers were recited, or otherwise trying not to let their bulky space-suited bodies grate on their nerves. The tight space was made worse by all the extra paraphernalia its passengers had along with the packed cargo spaces. Spare ammunition, extra tools, even deployable fortification equipment. Whatever could be of use in the oncoming op.
"Don't worry, we can handle the mission just fine they said. We got this, they said. Well we certainly do, except for escorting any techies, that not so much" grumbled one Fire team leader Myron Sarantou to himself. Stuck where he was because of too many 'incidents' with superior officers but he personally didn't mind. He was too much of a rough and ready individual to shepherd more than a handful of newbies if he did get promoted.
Patting his rifle again Myron gazed over at the others in his team. It wasn't one that could be called green as grass. Nikolas Mitrotis was another aging vet, older then Myron in fact and had survived everything that the Cylons had thrown at him. He had the SAW for the team, the heavy variant of their rifle could clear out an entire room and still have spares for the next. Anna Lillakis meanwhile was a fellow marine, they had served together on the Galactica for years. A deft hand with explosives, she had not skimped on her loadout for the mission. The other fireteam was also three people, their fourth members having been shuffled off to the next wave with the next wave of supplies. He had gotten cursory introductions from the two techies but hoped that would be it. Myron didn't want the mission to go sour enough that he needed that sort of information on hand.
"Right folks, we are making our final approach. Prep for some turbulence because Beagle Airlines is about to face some turbulence". Myron gritted his teeth as the others shifted at that announcement from the pilot. "Karking Raptor jockeys, wish they were Viper pilots" he murmured within the confines of his helmet.
True to those words the craft shook, its inertial dampeners letting enough force bleed through to show that some tricky maneuvers were underway. When the shaking finally stopped the pilot came back on the speaker. "Kay folks, you know the drill. Opening the doors cuz you don't get the nice way off the boat".
The raptor bay was already decompressed so nothing flew out as the marines left the ship at a quick pace and weapons held at the ready. Though there was no atmosphere, the ship did have gravity still active so there wasn't a need for the mag boots. The left pathway of the corridor they had entered was blocked by debris so they all went west. Myron looked out in the darkness, his vision limited only to the area that the IR spotlight on his suit or the smaller version attached to his rifle could illuminate for his helmet mounted filters to parse. Nothing seemed to move, the area being only strangely ornate corridor walls before they came to a sealed bulkhead. Low level illumination strips marked out the gateway and served as the only source of visible light in the entire corridor. Just enough light to cast the closed bulkheads in an ominous light. Alcoves laid on either side of the doors, empty though wires could be seen protruding from them. The doors themselves had a strange double headed aquila symbol with what seemed oddly like desiccated pieces of paper and wax attached to the surface. Neither could possibly have withstood vacuum so it should have been something else. Still not what one expected on a warship.
Myron spared a glance over to the techies and spoke up on the com. "Area is clear, we have a big set of bulkhead doors here. Don't look like we can get in without killing ourselves with the amount of explosives that would take. Can we cut it open or find some other way in?" he asked.
Anna and Nikolas, who had been mostly silent, chose to start bantering. "You notice the way they did the decorating?" remarked Anna. Nikolas snorted, "Seems like the inside of a temple with all the columns and inscriptions. I don't recognize any of the script, but it seems like how they would have passages from the Scrolls be plastered everywhere".
"Yeah, definitely don't look Kobolian. I had a bit of Ancient Kobolian from when I was in a temple school, none of this looks close to that. Think we found aliens?" replied Anna.
"Nah, or if did they found humans before. Pretty sure there are bones inset into places here. They look pretty human to me" was the morbid reply of Nikolas, no one asked where he could recognize human bone from.
"Can it for now, I don't want your chatter in my ear for this convo" barked Myron into their team net.
During their chat one of the techies brought out some sort of sensor on a stick that they waved over the area, the search taking long minutes since the corridor was more the size of a small town's street. You could fit a car comfortably down the path with room to spare on either side for pedestrians. Finally though they spoke up. The techy grunted into the comnet before speaking with a picon accent, her voice gruff and no-nonsense. "Yeah, it would take an hour to cut through and that is if our drill is up to spec. I don't know what they made the doors of but I think there are vaults that are weaker than this. Still there seems like some sort of maintenance accessway along the walls. Give me a minute to see if we have a door on our stretch or if we need to blast in".
It was more uncomfortable minutes of waiting that Myron had the other two on his team help the second techy finish unloading the Raptor. Finally though they managed to find a doorway. One that rather creepily had what couldn't have been an actual cybernetics laced skull set where one would have the access panel. The techy, Petrelis, who Myron finally bothered looking at their tag, snorted at the sight. "Right, obviously I got no way in the non explosive way so give me a sec to find the right way to lay charges".
By that time the others had arrived to join them, some portable cover being trundled into position. The half a man sized pieces of metal were rigged up and the group hid behind them when the charges went. After the muffled shockwave passed they checked over their handiwork. Whatever the wall was made of sent much of the charge back but was still weakened enough for some breaching mattock blows to finally crack the door open. A hiss of old air escaped into the corridor with each strike as grunts could be heard over the comnet. The door fell with an audible thump to their audio pickups before the group carefully went in, the walkway seemed like what one could find on the Galactica if layered with odd flyers that seemed to mimic parchment and more of the wax seals littered over the area. Long stretches of corridor had odd marks like someone had taken a blowtorch and done graffiti with it, odd geometric shapes or undulating lines of repeating dots or dashes were overlaid on top of each other.
The group proceeded until they found the next door that would take them behind the sealed bulkheads. This time the door could be opened from the inside much easier than the outside, though the techs brought some portable grates to seal out the open ends of the maintenance ways. Breaching back into the main corridor found them facing yet more bulkheads, this time because it was obviously a crossroad, there was the direction they came from and then three more off into cardinal directions. The square they found themselves in could have been a small building's parking lot from the size, there was some sort of grated building front like what one could find in a shop on one of the walls. Scattered bits of unidentifiable debris were littering the area, no one had obviously been here in some time from the dust though the air still weakly moved from some unseen vent system.
Myron looked to the techies who had been laying cable during their wait for the all clear. Petrelis nodded to him with her helmet before speaking into the comms. "Right that is the hardline to the relay, we can speak to the Raptor and then onward to the Galactica". Giving an acknowledgment, Myron reported their situation. The Captain back on the ship accepted the words before relaying that the next wave of Raptors were heading over. Their job was to find someplace defensible to hole up in and use as a base camp for the next phase of the operation.
Myron not seeing much of an option, signed for a breach at the shuttered building front. The team stacked up on the closed entryways and eventually Petrelis' duo found a mechanical lock for the shutters. Her toolbag ended up spread out on the floor as she attempted to unlock the gate. Still she made it in eventually and Myron had his gun trained on the slowly growing entry as the doors were carefully opened. No shots came out and Myron spotted an obvious set of countertops and chairs in the revealed room. Feeling clammy in his suit he signaled forward.
The building was quickly breached. Their way was speedy until they found the last room upstairs, unlike the others this was locked. Petrelis not finding anything trap related in an inspection set herself to breaking in. This time their weapons had a ready target to cross over. Said target was a humanoid bundle propped on the wall, the dried bloodstain that could be picked out from their NOFs making it readily apparent that it wasn't an active threat.
"Right everyone get your flashlights on. I don't think we need to use NOFs anymore. You two check the room over, I'll go watch the techies" Myron ordered before leaving to follow through on his words.
The two left in the room drifted over to the hunched over corpse after only seeing filing cabinets and a desk in the room. A portable lamp was set up on the desk in the room as the two trained the spotlights on their suits onto the corpse. "Frak" Anna let into the person to person comms. "That looks human for sure". Said corpse was dressed in some sort of jumpsuit, a rather poor quality one not meant for vacuum from the lack of seals. Strange symbols and trinkets littered the body, most prominent being another aquila shaped in a pendant gripped in the other hand of the corpse like it was the most important thing in their life.
Anna reached out a hand to touch it before retracting it, feeling goosebumps crawl up her arm when she reached out to the pendant. Her gaze moved instead to the gun, this time able to tug the thing onto the floor out of the corpse's hand with some effort. Meanwhile Nikolas had leaned over the corpse for a look himself.
"Don't look like any gunshot I know of, nor any gun to boot" was Nikolas' remark. His words weren't wrong, the obvious wound did not have the dimensions of a gunshot even as desiccated as it was. Anna looked back to the weapon she had laid out on the floor. The gun was some sort of revolver, but not one that anyone recognized. In place of the hammer on a revolver was some sort of striker assembly, not a mechanical one seemingly. A tab of some sort stuck out of the grip but it didn't seem like a magazine, not on the revolver looking contraption. Nikolas crouched down and slung his gun to pick up the weapon.
Carefully keeping the barrel away from anyone he inspected it for controls, one lever seemed to be the release as the weapon broke open and the barrel extracted some sort of cartridge. A faintly glowing bar seemed to be an indicator of some sort on the apparent power cell. Closing the weapon back up Nikolas pointed the weapon at a bare wall. "Nik" lowly warned Anna but the man pulled the trigger anyway. What came out was not a bullet, no it was a laser. Dribbles of molten metal leaked from the crater burnt into the wall, acrid smoke floated away as the group stared at the handheld laser gun.
"What the frak sort of ship are we on" remarked Anna. "Frak" was Nikolas' emphatic response. "What did you two jokers do?!" came Myron on the comms along with his thundering steps up the stairs.
"You are explaining this" dryly noted Anna. This was a splendid start to their mission.
A Big Discovery Part 02: Warhammer 40k & nBattlestar Galactica crossover
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
A Big Discovery Part 02: Warhammer 40k & nBattlestar Galactica crossover
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Warhammer 40k and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
The wonderfully named Camp Laserhole contained one of the three platoons that made up the company of marines that the Galactica had. The others were waiting for the hanger to be taken before they could do anything else that was more than get crammed into a spot with no easy escape. After that? Well one Sergeant Myron Sarantou did not know, he was very confused on how they were to do anything with this ship. If it was some civy megahauler then yeah that would be doable, this was no civy ship with those sort of guns on it. But that was for later, right now he had a scouting op to attend to. Thanks to having gotten resupplied the squad could pick up some toys.
Heavy riot shotguns had been "Creatively Acquired" and brought aboard with their ammunition. Heavy revolvers were also a favorite and fired the same round as their rifles in a compact wrist-breaking package. All documented and filed but as Tigh had grumbled in earshot of the troops, 'Only find-able if you knew exactly what you were doing'. Which really helped when not even five minutes into having picked a corridor to check they ran into something. The sounds of some sort of skirmish had them making double pace, the appearance of bullet casings and scorch marks making it clear that whoever it was, they were on the move. The bodies helped too of course, seemingly malformed and clutching a variety of crude armaments. They had died of gruesome wounds, body parts flash boiled and blown apart with somehow off color blood splattering the area. The ones killed the least gruesomely had the obvious sign of bayonet stab wounds and ax blows. It wasn't for the faint of heart. Still the first encounter with something that wasn't a corpse set the tone.
Each of them, even having entered areas with still breathable air, were still suited up. Even if it was breathable it wasn't exactly good quality air and the amount of holes in the ship meant they would probably find a place open to vacuum even deep into the ship. Better be stuck with the full getup as a rebreather wasn't much better. The group had proceeded along yet another stretch of maintenance pathway before they started hearing the sounds of combat. Yells, screams, gunshots, many things being picked up by their helmet mics. Making a snap decision Myron signed to the others to double-time it in that direction. Soon enough they made it to the corridor that was just outside of where the action was happening. A stray laser shot even being visible as they entered the hallway.
Anna Lillakis as point for the team had a rifle with a camera feed back into her suit, while needing to wait a second or two for the night filters to finish focusing they got the drop on whoever was inside. In this case a figure that was slumped against a wall, one still moving. Several still bleeding bodies made it clear that they were just behind the action.
Myron knew that he had to step forward even if the chance of getting shot was high. It wasn't smart at all, but smart and the Marines were never exactly in step with each other. Dammed ROE and dam himself for following stupid orders for up high.
Setting his speaker to high he made a gesture and the team breached loudly. Bursting through the doorway with weapons raised Myron made wide gestures of his hand while the other held his revolver. "Drop your weapon!! Drop your weapon! Hands in the air!!" he barked out, voice amplified by an order of magnitude.
The scrappy looking figure hunched with their back to the wall screeched, screeched in a way that wasn't quite human. While their hands were seemingly busy holding in the bleeding on their nearly torn off leg, a third hand came up with a gun. The automatic sprayed out bullets wildly, not held securely by a pain weakened and spindly hand before the gunfire of Myron's teammates ended the strange mutant creature. The heavy rounds of a cut down anti material rifle cartridge had thrown the creature brutally into the wall before the soft material pancaked on the hard surface.
Myron kicked the gun away just in case before detailing Nikolas Mitrotis to keep an eye on the door. Myron kept his gun ready as the techies they had brought along obligingly checked the body.
"Remind you of Hal'la'tha?" remarked Petrelis as her and her fellow comrade ran scanners over everything. Her gaze pointedly on the gun, what looked like a bunch of pipes stuck together with a crude stick of bullets jammed into the top of the gun and pointed downward to feed the weapon.
"Nah, Hal'la'tha usually have actual guns if civilian or mil surp. They don't use this stuff if they can help it" her partner replied.
"Heh, reminds me of a tour or two on Sagittaron. A few of the more rural groups would use this stuff" was Anna's input on the matter as she carefully picked up a piece of the apparent steel casing, "Not even lacquered for preservation. Small, pistol caliber, useless without either an entire mag or a lucky shot".
"At least we can hope none of them could figure out how to make anything heavier or we would have problems. We aren't exactly packing our usual body armor" Petrelis countered before grimacing. "I want to say that this is a piece of junk, but for bent metal it should work just fine. I don't want a bullet through the visor and neither should you".
"And if these people are not the ones with the laser guns then it must be the people they are attacking. But are we picking sides in a fight between humans?" Myron noted to play advocate.
"Human, not really sure about that" was the other tech's comment as they had an extendable baton poke at the strange third hand. A look under some actual lights showed that the figure was subtly off, certainly not colonial but this wasn't just that. The twelve tribes had quite the mix of peoples, but there was something subtly nonhuman, like someone had taken the clay and mud of humanity and smudged some things before it fired in the god's kiln. It was horrific.
"Are we even sure these are the good guys?" the other tech muttered with a great deal of self doubt.
"You are going to curse us" Myron replied for lack of anything else to say, he had grave misgivings about these 'things' himself.
"Whoever their fighting has to be better equipped, but there can only be so many of them if this lot have any sort of fighting chance" Anna muttered as she swapped around a few of her magazines.
"Yah, I doubt a ship this big doesn't have an actual security force. If this lot could be running around then what happened to their armory?" pointed out Nikolas.
"Think we are getting more out of this?" asked Anna to which Petrelis shook her helmet clad head. "Not when we might be about to get into a firefight".
Myron decided that Anna had a point. "On that note let's go. I want to get more answers''.
The team rallied back into order and followed the linear path to where the firefight had been moving. The sounds of combat which had ebbed and flowed was now silent. Not encouraging to the group. The sudden horde of screaming figures with weapons firing off in a vague attempt at suppressing fire sold that feeling. The mass coming out of the literal ductwork where they had just come from. A fresh squad of marines would have flinched, stalled, trying to figure out to shoot or not. Not them. "I hate these answers" snarled Nikolas before he leveled his gun.
The next few seconds were filled with gunfire and Myron yelling "Forward, Forward. Leaping bound!", a split second decision between the unknown and being swarmed at close quarters.
"Mag empty!" "Nade out!" "Reloading!" "Covering!" "Hit, nothing went through" "Shit, jam!", each of the team moving and shooting and acting on training and experience.
The fight was chaotic for all that it was brief. Their weapons barked in rapid fire shots, each round tearing bloody chunks from one body into the second and third behind it. The real mark of expertise being that they did not overly concentrate on the same figure, each picking a different target in their chosen sector of fire. Each pacing themselves to not be left without some firepower on hand. Bullet casings were the path that the rabid mass followed.
The constant muzzle flashes meant that none of them had their night filters going, Myron instead was one of the few with a hand free to flick on his spotlights to their max setting to reveal more then shadowed figures in the dark. His eyes picked out that these were more of the creature from earlier, the seemingly endless stream of literally slavering bodies came in a variety of different forms and with a riot's worth of gear from metal clubs to more makeshift guns. A sharp contrast to the weapons being used to kill them in job lots, but not necessarily a good thing.
Myron's training meant he was keeping an eye on how much ammo they were using and not finding the answer good compared to what they were fighting. Their rifles were really overkill, heavier built versions of the standard colonial firearm, using a smaller version of the Cylon Killer round used as attachments for service pistols. Worthless on an open field, within the confines of a ship? It could tear open Cylon War era Centurions with a direct hit and did terrible things to the swarm of raggedly clothed things that charged them with only shovels and pieces of sharpened scrap. Bodies being torn apart into small chunks and splattering the others in a way that should have destroyed the will of any sane creature. That was not the case here as they kept pressing forward, a mass of flesh edging closer and closer by the second no matter how many died.
One of the few weaknesses despite the firepower was of course the small ammo supply. Shotguns however did provide a momentary relief, the guns built from repurposed autocannon barrels pumped and fired as fast as possible, whatever loads they had tearing into and exploding amongst the insane horde charging them as dozens were moved down each second as the handheld artillery fired. Each massive fireball muzzle flash heralded flesh tearing from the rain of steel shot. But the insane pack kept pushing forward in the blood and gore streaked hallways. And the shotguns were not going to be reloaded before the crowd arrived. Myron himself desperately popped his revolver off as fast as he could one handed. His other hand was busy directing their rapid retreat, his mind whirling over whether they could find somewhere to make a stand or keep going into a potential dead end.
The presence of heavier firepower amongst the insane horde announced itself as a flash of ruby light sparking off the ceiling. Cursing at that Myron made a decision to bring out one of his mil grade flashbangs, the oversized grenade meant to incapacitate an entire corridor in a boarding situation. "Big bang going out! Muffle!". He threw the explosive into the horde where it disappeared in the sea of flesh and blood. Its effect however was clear as the entire corridor was blasted by the concussive effect, the air in the room letting the effect travel forward and back leaving bleeding ears from the military grade explosive. Bodies piled up as the entire mob halted for a brief time. "Frags all of you! Then hightail it!". Each of them pulled out one of the few grenades they had left and immediately scrambled to run. They barely managed to outpace the storm of shrapnel as they ran like the Furies were after them. Only stopping briefly to lock the door behind them with some well placed bullets. They hurtled deeper and deeper into the ship trying to put distance between them. Adrenaline pumped through their veins and the beat of their hearts thunderous in their ears as they kept going forward.
It was NIkolas slowing slightly that let the others realize that they weren't the first ones to have gone down this hallway. The path ahead showed traces of same firefight they had been trying to reach in the first place. Whoever it was hadn't left anything but scorch-marks and the corpses of the same things that they had been fighting. With nothing else seemingly near them Myron called a halt in the first side room he could find. It seemed to be some sort of small storeroom, broken metal crates showing that it had long been cleared out of anything. Shutting the door they shoved a somewhat intact crate into the door before collapsing on whatever seats they could find.
"Get your gear sorted, we might not have a chance to stop after this. Ditch what you don't need too, we are going to head back and fuck anyone that says we don't need an evac from this" Myron barked to the others as he tried to get a sip from his helmet's water tank. The canteen sized pouch finding itself guzzled down his parched throat. Myron's hands twitched and shook in their gloves but he did not show anything the best he could. Taking the time to repack his mags he noticed Nikolas cock his head to him from where he was seated opposite Myron.
"Do we have a plan?" Nikolas asked Myron on a private channel. The Sergeant considered that before he sighed audibly, replying "Nothing that isn't half assed. We have no way to contact the basecamp this deep into the ship, and we aren't kitted out for another fight like that. One more fight and we are out of ammo". Sore arms and soon to be no ammo, maybe loading for Cylon hadn't been a good idea he considered before throwing away the useless thought.
"Frak" was Nikolas' response. "Frak" was the only thing that Myron could think to say. Before the silence could grow awkward though they heard the sound of something scampering closer. Several somethings.
"Frak!" "Cover!". Weapons were raised and the group spaced themselves out in the room, trying to find what cover they could. The group heard someone moving loudly, running just to their door and then strange cracking noises like wood being snapped before a roar of some sort. Obvious cursing in some unknown language and the thunderous stampede of the apparent pursuers. A bloodcurdling scream started before abruptly cutting off, the distinct thud of a body dropping drove a spike of fear into all of them. The noise of heavy guttural breathing, nonhuman breathing was heard just outside their door.
Before they could think that the ship had some sort of feral population or maybe religious fanatics from how what must have been at least a hundred hostiles throw their lives away trying to tear the group apart. This though, this wasn't anything human at all. The beast whose steps they heard stopped outside the door and without pausing began tearing it apart to get in. Four clawed arms slashed at the door and they caught sight of a ravenous mouth full of needled teeth and a spike like tongue. Its skull was elongated and bulbous when a hole was opened up enough for the beast to stick itself in before promptly having its brain evacuated at top speed from a bullet. That seemed to only spur the rest to come crashing in. More clawed hands tore at the door and the makeshift barricade. Strange alien blood splattered the door as it was broken down, everyone trying to stop the abominations getting in but after that first hit the rest seemed to just absorb entire magazines before they fell. The bodies barely slowed the rest from getting in, clawed hands gripping the now fallen door's frame to propel themselves into the room.
Anna was the first to fall, a swipe of a ravenous claw and she went down in a splash of crimson, not a sound coming from her as she fell. Nikolas screamed as he lost all discipline with his SAW chewing into the beast, its flesh cratering and spurting more alien blood before finally falling. But another took its place, this time taking advantage of the empty clicking of the soldier's weapon. Undeterred by the shots the rest of them were putting into it, it swung two of its arms at Nikolas who tried to throw himself back. Myron didn't see more as he had to turn to focus on another coming in. He unslung his revolver as his rifle ran dry, the heavy slugs not enough to check its advance until the rest of the team tore into it with concentrated fire. As Myron dropped his empty gun to try to reload his rifle he threw himself to the ground instinctively as he barely caught something hurtling through the air.
Yet another of the spawn of the underworld had entered, and this time no one seemingly had a loaded weapon. It rapidly turned from its lunge only to get a gun to the face from someone along with bad language. Its response to the futile effort splattered Myron with the blood of whoever that was. Then he was running forward with a cry of fear or rage on his lips, a heavy combat knife stabbing into the monster's throat and then viciously dragged back into its skull. The beast fell but not before backhanding Myron into a crate. His breath exploded out, spittle splattering the inside of his helmet before he lumbered back to his feet. His gaze spotted the lower half of whoever it was that had just died. The important part to his rushing mind, the shotgun between their legs. Tearing the thing into his arms he looked up in time to see Petrelis be gored from an upthrust arm, her form going limp before she was thrown away. He had a slight second to rack the slide back and see a round still in the chamber, then there were fireworks going off in front of his face as he emptied the tube.
A shot threw enough buckshot downrange to tear an arm off the latest beast, the next checked its advance for a moment, and the last round finally splattered its head. As the gunsmoke drifted off Myron was left with nothing to defend himself other than an unwieldy club. But he did not need it for nothing else stirred in that room turned charnel house. A quick glance showed he was the only one left standing. The last, only unmoving forms whose gruesome wounds left no thought possible to their survival. Just unmoving corpses that were moving things less than a minute ago. That realization had him stumbling to the exit, just to get away. Myron scrambled over the pile of fallen monsters before he tripped and fell face first to the ground. Looking across the floor he spotted the obvious form of a weapon.
Myron looked at the gun on the ground of the freshly cooling body next to it as his body still heaved from the adrenaline rush. He noted in a moment of tunnel vision that the apparent crew member of the ship looked like someone you could find on Caprica or reasonably on any of the 12 colonies. Their face still and glassy eyed in the air, some archaic seeming open faced helmet on their head. A look down showed them dressed in equally archaic seeming armor of some sort of studded coat with layers of metal plates protecting their limbs. Well what was intact of them from where gouges had been torn out. The armor seemingly having not done enough to save them. His mind blearily wondered at the strange get up. The look seems to be of someone used to the cold by the heavy clothes under the armor, not the sort of thing typically found on military ships but evidently whoever the ship belonged to did things differently. Then it focused again on the important thing, the weapon. The corpse's weapon was smoking, enough for the team leader to realize that a normal firearm would not be doing that.
Somewhat recklessly Myron reached out and shouldered the weapon tentatively as the got up onto their knees. The controls were simple enough, akin to a hunting rifle. If one set up with strange LEDs that obviously were for something even as the rest of the controls were all set up like a regular ballistic weapon. Keeping the weapon pointed down the hallway they depressed one of the twin triggers which did nothing, the other had the action open up to release a cartridge of some sort. Looking down the barrel did not show blackness and an opening. No, this thing did not fire bullets. Cottoning on to the only other thing that such a weapon could fire along with the scorch marks on the walls they had passed so many times, Myron started pawing at the body. Trying to scavenge for ammo from the corpse. They had a bandoleer that had more of the cartridges on them, this time lit up with obvious energy. Flipping one of the rounds from a pouch he rocked it back and forth before he figured out how to load the gun. Closing the action had a few of the lights change. A tentative squeeze of the trigger confirmed that the gun worked. A streak of light flashed by to show that the far wall had already been gouged and blackened.
A powerful weapon in his hand and only corpses beside him. Myron began to laugh, 'Anna, Nikolas' he screamed in his mind, both torn to pieces along with everyone else and here he was messing around with fancy laser guns. He was separated from the rest of the squad and the platoon to boot with the bloody remnants of his comrades just behind him in the room they had stopped at for barely a few minutes. As the crazed mood slowly drained from him he refocused, live. He had to live, for the others who had lost their own lives. Looking at the corpse of the unknown soldier he unbuckled the bandoleer of cartridges and on a whim picked up the holstered handaxe they had on their side. Bracing himself he turned around, he needed to grab the tags of his comrades, and whatever ammo they still had. His hands moved even as his mind blanked, refusing to take in the faces he could see even as he checked their bodies for what he needed. Eyes that would never see again as he pressed bloody fingers to close them. Then he was standing back at the entrance. Myron could not look back as he started backtracking, a handful of tags stuffed into one of the emptied ammo pouches he had. He had the strange laser rifle, his revolver with a few more speedloaders of ammo, and a shotgun with a dozen more shells spare. It would do.
His already bloody boots splashed through the pile of corpses and brass that he had helped make on the way there. But nothing moved, if any of the things that hat been shot earlier had lived for a moment then they had either bled out or scrambled elsewhere entirely. It mattered little as long as they did not show themselves. He had to get back. He had to get back and tell them what had happened. That thought kept him going the seemingly endless journey back to where he had first seen a body of the things that had swarmed his team. He gave the corpse a vindictive kick but he kept going. Only a few more minutes of walking to go. But his journey was not to be empty, no as a corner of his mind enjoyed he had one more obstacle between him and the basecamp. That being the pack of feral monsters trying to break in, the same non-humans bashing and shooting at one of the big gates to the camp. The thing twisted and torn by some sort of explosion and bullets desperately being poured into the holes that the creatures were attempting to force their way through. Myron racked his shotgun and then unceremoniously unloaded it.
The sudden clouds of buckshot cleared the way as Myron doggedly stepped forward with his familiar revolver and the weight of his new ax bringing a moment of appreciation before he swung it. One of them was still bleeding, still crawling. Claw like hands reaching out for his boots. He crushed one limb under his weight and took aim. The head of the still moving body under him split open with one blow before he tugged the hunk of metal back and unloaded a shot of his revolver into another thing that tried to attack him. The body flew back with a crack of the round and an opened ribcage before another tried to rush him. The ax hacked at them, sinking its head in a sucking welch into their chest. Myron hurriedly kicked them off of it before snapping another shot at a fourth and then a fifth body that tried to throw themselves at him with shovels. Myron hissed and dropped his revolver when a bullet struck his arm but he didn't let the pain stop him as he hurled himself forward. The ax found the one who shot him and Myron reared back with the bloody implement for another swing. This ended the creature and Myron raggedly kept going forward. Nothing else barred his way before he stepped into the breach they had made. His form tripping over a corpse was the only thing that saved him from a bullet that zipped just over his falling form.
Looking up he opened his mouth to shout before remembering that he needed to activate his speaker. That ended up not being needed as an arm started hauling him out. He bit off a scream of pain as they had grabbed both his uninjured and his injured arm. As he rode the pain he found himself with his back against a crate, someone with a medic's symbol checking him over. Someone else came by as he tried to refocus, the question just registering enough to have him try to say something. But his mouth refused to make noise. Instead his intact arm reached into a pouch and pulled out a fistful of tags. The questions ceased for a moment. His mind finally realized that it was the platoon lieutenant that was there, looking ragged themselves but still standing.
Myron heard them try to ask about the gun he realized he had a death grip on again. The laser gun that was still slung on him. "Found it. Needed to bring it back" he managed to get out. He heard them say something else, a demand for a better explanation.
"Special gun, shooty. Like . . ." his eyes managed to catch movement. It wasn't just another not-human. No it was something else, something larger and almost more menacing then the beasts of flesh he had fought his way through. A strange open topped machine with massive caution colored claws was visibly stomping towards them. The others in the room had noticed and were scrambling. Some opening up wildly, others desperately trying to load riot shotguns with something heavier. Battlecries could be heard as the thing smashed a claw into the damaged door, denting it in to expand the gap. Then another swing and another rapidly in succession, the cacophony of metal signaling the impending breakthrough of the monsters.
Myron found himself reflexively shouldering the still unfamiliar weapon in his hands, a slight thought of hoping there wasn't much recoil before he pulled the trigger. Another snapping sound and a burst of red light, then another, and a third before nothing happened. His target, the bipedal machine, was hit on the cockpit glass which blackened before his next few shots also started melting the material. He thought it wasn't enough until someone took a regular rifle and sprayed an entire mag into the machine. Blood visibly spurted out the top alongside the sound of shattering metal as the canopy rained broken glass. The strange chicken walker stood still for a moment before collapsing, crushing the others who had been attempting to get in. Gunfire cleared any still standing on their feet. Then silence.
"Well I'll be. Special gun indeed" he heard before the medic came back and started jabbing an ampule of meds into his suit's intake slot. Myron found himself starting to drift into a haze as the pain ebbed away. He lived, and no one else on his team did. Last tour indeed.
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and related franchises along with Warhammer 40k and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
The wonderfully named Camp Laserhole contained one of the three platoons that made up the company of marines that the Galactica had. The others were waiting for the hanger to be taken before they could do anything else that was more than get crammed into a spot with no easy escape. After that? Well one Sergeant Myron Sarantou did not know, he was very confused on how they were to do anything with this ship. If it was some civy megahauler then yeah that would be doable, this was no civy ship with those sort of guns on it. But that was for later, right now he had a scouting op to attend to. Thanks to having gotten resupplied the squad could pick up some toys.
Heavy riot shotguns had been "Creatively Acquired" and brought aboard with their ammunition. Heavy revolvers were also a favorite and fired the same round as their rifles in a compact wrist-breaking package. All documented and filed but as Tigh had grumbled in earshot of the troops, 'Only find-able if you knew exactly what you were doing'. Which really helped when not even five minutes into having picked a corridor to check they ran into something. The sounds of some sort of skirmish had them making double pace, the appearance of bullet casings and scorch marks making it clear that whoever it was, they were on the move. The bodies helped too of course, seemingly malformed and clutching a variety of crude armaments. They had died of gruesome wounds, body parts flash boiled and blown apart with somehow off color blood splattering the area. The ones killed the least gruesomely had the obvious sign of bayonet stab wounds and ax blows. It wasn't for the faint of heart. Still the first encounter with something that wasn't a corpse set the tone.
Each of them, even having entered areas with still breathable air, were still suited up. Even if it was breathable it wasn't exactly good quality air and the amount of holes in the ship meant they would probably find a place open to vacuum even deep into the ship. Better be stuck with the full getup as a rebreather wasn't much better. The group had proceeded along yet another stretch of maintenance pathway before they started hearing the sounds of combat. Yells, screams, gunshots, many things being picked up by their helmet mics. Making a snap decision Myron signed to the others to double-time it in that direction. Soon enough they made it to the corridor that was just outside of where the action was happening. A stray laser shot even being visible as they entered the hallway.
Anna Lillakis as point for the team had a rifle with a camera feed back into her suit, while needing to wait a second or two for the night filters to finish focusing they got the drop on whoever was inside. In this case a figure that was slumped against a wall, one still moving. Several still bleeding bodies made it clear that they were just behind the action.
Myron knew that he had to step forward even if the chance of getting shot was high. It wasn't smart at all, but smart and the Marines were never exactly in step with each other. Dammed ROE and dam himself for following stupid orders for up high.
Setting his speaker to high he made a gesture and the team breached loudly. Bursting through the doorway with weapons raised Myron made wide gestures of his hand while the other held his revolver. "Drop your weapon!! Drop your weapon! Hands in the air!!" he barked out, voice amplified by an order of magnitude.
The scrappy looking figure hunched with their back to the wall screeched, screeched in a way that wasn't quite human. While their hands were seemingly busy holding in the bleeding on their nearly torn off leg, a third hand came up with a gun. The automatic sprayed out bullets wildly, not held securely by a pain weakened and spindly hand before the gunfire of Myron's teammates ended the strange mutant creature. The heavy rounds of a cut down anti material rifle cartridge had thrown the creature brutally into the wall before the soft material pancaked on the hard surface.
Myron kicked the gun away just in case before detailing Nikolas Mitrotis to keep an eye on the door. Myron kept his gun ready as the techies they had brought along obligingly checked the body.
"Remind you of Hal'la'tha?" remarked Petrelis as her and her fellow comrade ran scanners over everything. Her gaze pointedly on the gun, what looked like a bunch of pipes stuck together with a crude stick of bullets jammed into the top of the gun and pointed downward to feed the weapon.
"Nah, Hal'la'tha usually have actual guns if civilian or mil surp. They don't use this stuff if they can help it" her partner replied.
"Heh, reminds me of a tour or two on Sagittaron. A few of the more rural groups would use this stuff" was Anna's input on the matter as she carefully picked up a piece of the apparent steel casing, "Not even lacquered for preservation. Small, pistol caliber, useless without either an entire mag or a lucky shot".
"At least we can hope none of them could figure out how to make anything heavier or we would have problems. We aren't exactly packing our usual body armor" Petrelis countered before grimacing. "I want to say that this is a piece of junk, but for bent metal it should work just fine. I don't want a bullet through the visor and neither should you".
"And if these people are not the ones with the laser guns then it must be the people they are attacking. But are we picking sides in a fight between humans?" Myron noted to play advocate.
"Human, not really sure about that" was the other tech's comment as they had an extendable baton poke at the strange third hand. A look under some actual lights showed that the figure was subtly off, certainly not colonial but this wasn't just that. The twelve tribes had quite the mix of peoples, but there was something subtly nonhuman, like someone had taken the clay and mud of humanity and smudged some things before it fired in the god's kiln. It was horrific.
"Are we even sure these are the good guys?" the other tech muttered with a great deal of self doubt.
"You are going to curse us" Myron replied for lack of anything else to say, he had grave misgivings about these 'things' himself.
"Whoever their fighting has to be better equipped, but there can only be so many of them if this lot have any sort of fighting chance" Anna muttered as she swapped around a few of her magazines.
"Yah, I doubt a ship this big doesn't have an actual security force. If this lot could be running around then what happened to their armory?" pointed out Nikolas.
"Think we are getting more out of this?" asked Anna to which Petrelis shook her helmet clad head. "Not when we might be about to get into a firefight".
Myron decided that Anna had a point. "On that note let's go. I want to get more answers''.
The team rallied back into order and followed the linear path to where the firefight had been moving. The sounds of combat which had ebbed and flowed was now silent. Not encouraging to the group. The sudden horde of screaming figures with weapons firing off in a vague attempt at suppressing fire sold that feeling. The mass coming out of the literal ductwork where they had just come from. A fresh squad of marines would have flinched, stalled, trying to figure out to shoot or not. Not them. "I hate these answers" snarled Nikolas before he leveled his gun.
The next few seconds were filled with gunfire and Myron yelling "Forward, Forward. Leaping bound!", a split second decision between the unknown and being swarmed at close quarters.
"Mag empty!" "Nade out!" "Reloading!" "Covering!" "Hit, nothing went through" "Shit, jam!", each of the team moving and shooting and acting on training and experience.
The fight was chaotic for all that it was brief. Their weapons barked in rapid fire shots, each round tearing bloody chunks from one body into the second and third behind it. The real mark of expertise being that they did not overly concentrate on the same figure, each picking a different target in their chosen sector of fire. Each pacing themselves to not be left without some firepower on hand. Bullet casings were the path that the rabid mass followed.
The constant muzzle flashes meant that none of them had their night filters going, Myron instead was one of the few with a hand free to flick on his spotlights to their max setting to reveal more then shadowed figures in the dark. His eyes picked out that these were more of the creature from earlier, the seemingly endless stream of literally slavering bodies came in a variety of different forms and with a riot's worth of gear from metal clubs to more makeshift guns. A sharp contrast to the weapons being used to kill them in job lots, but not necessarily a good thing.
Myron's training meant he was keeping an eye on how much ammo they were using and not finding the answer good compared to what they were fighting. Their rifles were really overkill, heavier built versions of the standard colonial firearm, using a smaller version of the Cylon Killer round used as attachments for service pistols. Worthless on an open field, within the confines of a ship? It could tear open Cylon War era Centurions with a direct hit and did terrible things to the swarm of raggedly clothed things that charged them with only shovels and pieces of sharpened scrap. Bodies being torn apart into small chunks and splattering the others in a way that should have destroyed the will of any sane creature. That was not the case here as they kept pressing forward, a mass of flesh edging closer and closer by the second no matter how many died.
One of the few weaknesses despite the firepower was of course the small ammo supply. Shotguns however did provide a momentary relief, the guns built from repurposed autocannon barrels pumped and fired as fast as possible, whatever loads they had tearing into and exploding amongst the insane horde charging them as dozens were moved down each second as the handheld artillery fired. Each massive fireball muzzle flash heralded flesh tearing from the rain of steel shot. But the insane pack kept pushing forward in the blood and gore streaked hallways. And the shotguns were not going to be reloaded before the crowd arrived. Myron himself desperately popped his revolver off as fast as he could one handed. His other hand was busy directing their rapid retreat, his mind whirling over whether they could find somewhere to make a stand or keep going into a potential dead end.
The presence of heavier firepower amongst the insane horde announced itself as a flash of ruby light sparking off the ceiling. Cursing at that Myron made a decision to bring out one of his mil grade flashbangs, the oversized grenade meant to incapacitate an entire corridor in a boarding situation. "Big bang going out! Muffle!". He threw the explosive into the horde where it disappeared in the sea of flesh and blood. Its effect however was clear as the entire corridor was blasted by the concussive effect, the air in the room letting the effect travel forward and back leaving bleeding ears from the military grade explosive. Bodies piled up as the entire mob halted for a brief time. "Frags all of you! Then hightail it!". Each of them pulled out one of the few grenades they had left and immediately scrambled to run. They barely managed to outpace the storm of shrapnel as they ran like the Furies were after them. Only stopping briefly to lock the door behind them with some well placed bullets. They hurtled deeper and deeper into the ship trying to put distance between them. Adrenaline pumped through their veins and the beat of their hearts thunderous in their ears as they kept going forward.
It was NIkolas slowing slightly that let the others realize that they weren't the first ones to have gone down this hallway. The path ahead showed traces of same firefight they had been trying to reach in the first place. Whoever it was hadn't left anything but scorch-marks and the corpses of the same things that they had been fighting. With nothing else seemingly near them Myron called a halt in the first side room he could find. It seemed to be some sort of small storeroom, broken metal crates showing that it had long been cleared out of anything. Shutting the door they shoved a somewhat intact crate into the door before collapsing on whatever seats they could find.
"Get your gear sorted, we might not have a chance to stop after this. Ditch what you don't need too, we are going to head back and fuck anyone that says we don't need an evac from this" Myron barked to the others as he tried to get a sip from his helmet's water tank. The canteen sized pouch finding itself guzzled down his parched throat. Myron's hands twitched and shook in their gloves but he did not show anything the best he could. Taking the time to repack his mags he noticed Nikolas cock his head to him from where he was seated opposite Myron.
"Do we have a plan?" Nikolas asked Myron on a private channel. The Sergeant considered that before he sighed audibly, replying "Nothing that isn't half assed. We have no way to contact the basecamp this deep into the ship, and we aren't kitted out for another fight like that. One more fight and we are out of ammo". Sore arms and soon to be no ammo, maybe loading for Cylon hadn't been a good idea he considered before throwing away the useless thought.
"Frak" was Nikolas' response. "Frak" was the only thing that Myron could think to say. Before the silence could grow awkward though they heard the sound of something scampering closer. Several somethings.
"Frak!" "Cover!". Weapons were raised and the group spaced themselves out in the room, trying to find what cover they could. The group heard someone moving loudly, running just to their door and then strange cracking noises like wood being snapped before a roar of some sort. Obvious cursing in some unknown language and the thunderous stampede of the apparent pursuers. A bloodcurdling scream started before abruptly cutting off, the distinct thud of a body dropping drove a spike of fear into all of them. The noise of heavy guttural breathing, nonhuman breathing was heard just outside their door.
Before they could think that the ship had some sort of feral population or maybe religious fanatics from how what must have been at least a hundred hostiles throw their lives away trying to tear the group apart. This though, this wasn't anything human at all. The beast whose steps they heard stopped outside the door and without pausing began tearing it apart to get in. Four clawed arms slashed at the door and they caught sight of a ravenous mouth full of needled teeth and a spike like tongue. Its skull was elongated and bulbous when a hole was opened up enough for the beast to stick itself in before promptly having its brain evacuated at top speed from a bullet. That seemed to only spur the rest to come crashing in. More clawed hands tore at the door and the makeshift barricade. Strange alien blood splattered the door as it was broken down, everyone trying to stop the abominations getting in but after that first hit the rest seemed to just absorb entire magazines before they fell. The bodies barely slowed the rest from getting in, clawed hands gripping the now fallen door's frame to propel themselves into the room.
Anna was the first to fall, a swipe of a ravenous claw and she went down in a splash of crimson, not a sound coming from her as she fell. Nikolas screamed as he lost all discipline with his SAW chewing into the beast, its flesh cratering and spurting more alien blood before finally falling. But another took its place, this time taking advantage of the empty clicking of the soldier's weapon. Undeterred by the shots the rest of them were putting into it, it swung two of its arms at Nikolas who tried to throw himself back. Myron didn't see more as he had to turn to focus on another coming in. He unslung his revolver as his rifle ran dry, the heavy slugs not enough to check its advance until the rest of the team tore into it with concentrated fire. As Myron dropped his empty gun to try to reload his rifle he threw himself to the ground instinctively as he barely caught something hurtling through the air.
Yet another of the spawn of the underworld had entered, and this time no one seemingly had a loaded weapon. It rapidly turned from its lunge only to get a gun to the face from someone along with bad language. Its response to the futile effort splattered Myron with the blood of whoever that was. Then he was running forward with a cry of fear or rage on his lips, a heavy combat knife stabbing into the monster's throat and then viciously dragged back into its skull. The beast fell but not before backhanding Myron into a crate. His breath exploded out, spittle splattering the inside of his helmet before he lumbered back to his feet. His gaze spotted the lower half of whoever it was that had just died. The important part to his rushing mind, the shotgun between their legs. Tearing the thing into his arms he looked up in time to see Petrelis be gored from an upthrust arm, her form going limp before she was thrown away. He had a slight second to rack the slide back and see a round still in the chamber, then there were fireworks going off in front of his face as he emptied the tube.
A shot threw enough buckshot downrange to tear an arm off the latest beast, the next checked its advance for a moment, and the last round finally splattered its head. As the gunsmoke drifted off Myron was left with nothing to defend himself other than an unwieldy club. But he did not need it for nothing else stirred in that room turned charnel house. A quick glance showed he was the only one left standing. The last, only unmoving forms whose gruesome wounds left no thought possible to their survival. Just unmoving corpses that were moving things less than a minute ago. That realization had him stumbling to the exit, just to get away. Myron scrambled over the pile of fallen monsters before he tripped and fell face first to the ground. Looking across the floor he spotted the obvious form of a weapon.
Myron looked at the gun on the ground of the freshly cooling body next to it as his body still heaved from the adrenaline rush. He noted in a moment of tunnel vision that the apparent crew member of the ship looked like someone you could find on Caprica or reasonably on any of the 12 colonies. Their face still and glassy eyed in the air, some archaic seeming open faced helmet on their head. A look down showed them dressed in equally archaic seeming armor of some sort of studded coat with layers of metal plates protecting their limbs. Well what was intact of them from where gouges had been torn out. The armor seemingly having not done enough to save them. His mind blearily wondered at the strange get up. The look seems to be of someone used to the cold by the heavy clothes under the armor, not the sort of thing typically found on military ships but evidently whoever the ship belonged to did things differently. Then it focused again on the important thing, the weapon. The corpse's weapon was smoking, enough for the team leader to realize that a normal firearm would not be doing that.
Somewhat recklessly Myron reached out and shouldered the weapon tentatively as the got up onto their knees. The controls were simple enough, akin to a hunting rifle. If one set up with strange LEDs that obviously were for something even as the rest of the controls were all set up like a regular ballistic weapon. Keeping the weapon pointed down the hallway they depressed one of the twin triggers which did nothing, the other had the action open up to release a cartridge of some sort. Looking down the barrel did not show blackness and an opening. No, this thing did not fire bullets. Cottoning on to the only other thing that such a weapon could fire along with the scorch marks on the walls they had passed so many times, Myron started pawing at the body. Trying to scavenge for ammo from the corpse. They had a bandoleer that had more of the cartridges on them, this time lit up with obvious energy. Flipping one of the rounds from a pouch he rocked it back and forth before he figured out how to load the gun. Closing the action had a few of the lights change. A tentative squeeze of the trigger confirmed that the gun worked. A streak of light flashed by to show that the far wall had already been gouged and blackened.
A powerful weapon in his hand and only corpses beside him. Myron began to laugh, 'Anna, Nikolas' he screamed in his mind, both torn to pieces along with everyone else and here he was messing around with fancy laser guns. He was separated from the rest of the squad and the platoon to boot with the bloody remnants of his comrades just behind him in the room they had stopped at for barely a few minutes. As the crazed mood slowly drained from him he refocused, live. He had to live, for the others who had lost their own lives. Looking at the corpse of the unknown soldier he unbuckled the bandoleer of cartridges and on a whim picked up the holstered handaxe they had on their side. Bracing himself he turned around, he needed to grab the tags of his comrades, and whatever ammo they still had. His hands moved even as his mind blanked, refusing to take in the faces he could see even as he checked their bodies for what he needed. Eyes that would never see again as he pressed bloody fingers to close them. Then he was standing back at the entrance. Myron could not look back as he started backtracking, a handful of tags stuffed into one of the emptied ammo pouches he had. He had the strange laser rifle, his revolver with a few more speedloaders of ammo, and a shotgun with a dozen more shells spare. It would do.
His already bloody boots splashed through the pile of corpses and brass that he had helped make on the way there. But nothing moved, if any of the things that hat been shot earlier had lived for a moment then they had either bled out or scrambled elsewhere entirely. It mattered little as long as they did not show themselves. He had to get back. He had to get back and tell them what had happened. That thought kept him going the seemingly endless journey back to where he had first seen a body of the things that had swarmed his team. He gave the corpse a vindictive kick but he kept going. Only a few more minutes of walking to go. But his journey was not to be empty, no as a corner of his mind enjoyed he had one more obstacle between him and the basecamp. That being the pack of feral monsters trying to break in, the same non-humans bashing and shooting at one of the big gates to the camp. The thing twisted and torn by some sort of explosion and bullets desperately being poured into the holes that the creatures were attempting to force their way through. Myron racked his shotgun and then unceremoniously unloaded it.
The sudden clouds of buckshot cleared the way as Myron doggedly stepped forward with his familiar revolver and the weight of his new ax bringing a moment of appreciation before he swung it. One of them was still bleeding, still crawling. Claw like hands reaching out for his boots. He crushed one limb under his weight and took aim. The head of the still moving body under him split open with one blow before he tugged the hunk of metal back and unloaded a shot of his revolver into another thing that tried to attack him. The body flew back with a crack of the round and an opened ribcage before another tried to rush him. The ax hacked at them, sinking its head in a sucking welch into their chest. Myron hurriedly kicked them off of it before snapping another shot at a fourth and then a fifth body that tried to throw themselves at him with shovels. Myron hissed and dropped his revolver when a bullet struck his arm but he didn't let the pain stop him as he hurled himself forward. The ax found the one who shot him and Myron reared back with the bloody implement for another swing. This ended the creature and Myron raggedly kept going forward. Nothing else barred his way before he stepped into the breach they had made. His form tripping over a corpse was the only thing that saved him from a bullet that zipped just over his falling form.
Looking up he opened his mouth to shout before remembering that he needed to activate his speaker. That ended up not being needed as an arm started hauling him out. He bit off a scream of pain as they had grabbed both his uninjured and his injured arm. As he rode the pain he found himself with his back against a crate, someone with a medic's symbol checking him over. Someone else came by as he tried to refocus, the question just registering enough to have him try to say something. But his mouth refused to make noise. Instead his intact arm reached into a pouch and pulled out a fistful of tags. The questions ceased for a moment. His mind finally realized that it was the platoon lieutenant that was there, looking ragged themselves but still standing.
Myron heard them try to ask about the gun he realized he had a death grip on again. The laser gun that was still slung on him. "Found it. Needed to bring it back" he managed to get out. He heard them say something else, a demand for a better explanation.
"Special gun, shooty. Like . . ." his eyes managed to catch movement. It wasn't just another not-human. No it was something else, something larger and almost more menacing then the beasts of flesh he had fought his way through. A strange open topped machine with massive caution colored claws was visibly stomping towards them. The others in the room had noticed and were scrambling. Some opening up wildly, others desperately trying to load riot shotguns with something heavier. Battlecries could be heard as the thing smashed a claw into the damaged door, denting it in to expand the gap. Then another swing and another rapidly in succession, the cacophony of metal signaling the impending breakthrough of the monsters.
Myron found himself reflexively shouldering the still unfamiliar weapon in his hands, a slight thought of hoping there wasn't much recoil before he pulled the trigger. Another snapping sound and a burst of red light, then another, and a third before nothing happened. His target, the bipedal machine, was hit on the cockpit glass which blackened before his next few shots also started melting the material. He thought it wasn't enough until someone took a regular rifle and sprayed an entire mag into the machine. Blood visibly spurted out the top alongside the sound of shattering metal as the canopy rained broken glass. The strange chicken walker stood still for a moment before collapsing, crushing the others who had been attempting to get in. Gunfire cleared any still standing on their feet. Then silence.
"Well I'll be. Special gun indeed" he heard before the medic came back and started jabbing an ampule of meds into his suit's intake slot. Myron found himself starting to drift into a haze as the pain ebbed away. He lived, and no one else on his team did. Last tour indeed.