Alright, time to hook Erika up to her charge cable with a reaction post.
Theda was a prisoner, but she still had rights.
Yet more utopian sci-fi. That's a deep longing sigh from me, folks.
though she couldn't help but get in a dig about how I was nonessential too.
Theda has volunteered for the prisoner exchange program! But, really, I like how Theda has been positioned as a external manifestation of all of Dora's anxieties, and I also like the reminder that we are morally superior to her.
Kennedy was missing, but I saw Milly step out of her tent a second later, stretching stiffly and heading for her own
I'm a little lost on character names here, is this confirmation of Kennedy lesbianisms, being attended by her aide, or both (lesbionics)?
To get the smear of lead off my lens
Damn, Dora's tough.
The hundredth percent hand began to tick on the charger's indicator.
Gosh DARN I love the aesthetics in this story.
We've got approximate meanings for nearly a hundred words, their numerical system, and… well, not grammar, but rough sentence structure?
Damn! That's a lot, but also very little. Foundational for other, more complex, concepts, but not a lot for actual communication. I think this and the postural and cussing stuff later would need a degree of cooperation to discover, so that's interesting to see from our guests. I'd have liked to see some pantomimes happening, because I love how goofy first contact must actually be when it's not involving tangential superbeings that transcend language, but I have been playing a lot of Heaven's Vault lately, though, so I'm craving linguistic interaction. I wonder what their pronoun stuff is, as semi-clones or whatever that whole deal is, with the officer class and individual names mentioned later. I think about Dora's own context, similar to the people doing the transcribing, of machines being vaguely interchangeable within their clade, but specific personalities emerging from experience and minute hardware differences. Like the clones from Star Wars! Rex, Fives, all literal clones grown and changed to be mass production, utterly swappable, etc etc, and yet!
They were also chatting as we walked down to the road, which was interesting.
"Where human take us?" one asked, and the other responded with a smear of words that didn't get caught in the translator. The conversation continued some, and I caught safe and walk and, to my surprise, machine, the English word rendered as best they could in the hisses and snaps of their language. That was interesting.
Cool! Our guests feel safe enough, either in language barrier or treatment, to talk around us. They also have some idea of Humans and Machines as separate concepts, which is cool. I wonder if that rides along their own officer/soldier divide, or if it's a deeper caste system?
"Officers." Sergeant Theo said quietly, shaking his head. "We go across space and time and officers are the same everywhere."
It's all for the hats, baby.
I did my best to put my body between them and our guests
my screen flared and sparked ahead of me as rounds skipped and whistled off.
Damn, Dora's tough.
I started walking toward the enemy
and mad!
Dust and smoke jumped all around me, sparks from the shield
the shield even deflected the rushing smoke and flame from the nearest guns. Burning pieces of paper wadding pattered off my jacket.
Damn, Dora's TOUGH!
The officer in my sights was backing away, trying to put their soldiers between me and him. Not because they could take the hit, but because the cowardly piece of shit wanted them to die first.
and MAD!
desperately tried to afix their bayonets, which resembled stout, thick nails. The one nearest lunged for me, and I grabbed the blade with my off hand and wrenched the bayonet free of its lug.
The sharped edges couldn't even tear the aramid fibres of my glove, nevermind hurt me.
Two more points came for me a moment later, and I brushed one aside
then I simply stepped through the barrels ahead of me, pushing them aside like brushing away tree branches.
They struck me several times with the spear, eventually tearing through the material of my jacket
lmao, "eventually". Had to work for it. DORA IS A BRICK GOSH DARN HOUSE.
I responded by snatching it from their hand and snapping it over my knee.
Wait, if she's still carrying him, that's a complicated thing to do one handed. Did she just slap it against her knee to break it with momentum? Hmm, could step forward with her far leg, put it in the crook of her knee, snap it by swinging the other leg forward. Or brace it against the ground, and bend it over her knee with her hand til it breaks. Either way it's an impressive feat of strength and dexterity! I dig the minimal writing to convey how meager it is compared to her anger.
Then I dragged them to their feet and held them in front of me. In front of their own damn guns for a change. The other officers called something and weapons pointed away, alien troops backing up nervously. I could see one at the edge of the line suddenly break into the trees, away from everyone else. The officer in my arms was screaming themselves hoarse trying to order the troops to do something, or perhaps begging for their life.
"Guns down." I announced, and with a few repetitions, the front ranks suddenly divested themselves of their weapons, backing away in great disorder. A few were running. I didn't know how to ask them to surrender and I doubted we could handle it, so I simply released my prisoner, pushed them roughly to the road, and turned around, walking back to my line.
"Go." I insisted, and they nearly trampled one another doing just that.
DAAAAAAMN DORA. That's how you get mythologised among the enemy, and maybe your own troops!
Lo, the demon waded through the storm of lead and soldiers like a child in grass, and plucked the coward from their midst. It strode back out, their guns still for fear of the coward's life, and bade them leave their weapons, and leave this place. It dropped the coward, and turned its back on them all.
"It said it wanted to be nice, that it was friendly, then the Lieutenant gave the order to fire! It dove in front of the prisoners, protecting them! Then it walked over, grabbed the bastard, and walk out, like we were nothing. It told us to drop the guns, and exit, then took the prisoner's again. They were scared when we fired, and were hopeful when it came to help them up. What the fuuuuuuuuuuck?"
"She shielded them, like any of us would, then grabbed the prick and tossed him to the ground and ordered a surrender. Nice and clean."
Great work,
@open_sketch . I'm excited to see what's next!
