esseresse
R'lyth Power Make-up
- Location
- divorceville, state of depression
- Pronouns
- They/Her
Belkins.. belkins... i feel like there was a important history thing from the other story mabye
Lieutenant Fusilier in The Farthest Reaches
- Thread starter open_sketch
- Start date
- Original Mature
- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I thought they'd just go to the unassailable fortress and build there. The rebels probably have energy too given the time they held, no?
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Why would they? Electricity is only used for fancy lighting and other niche purposes. A fortress doesn't need that.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah.
These guys are at... I dunno, roughly 1880-1910 level tech or so. At that level, the presence or absence of electrical power really has no meaningful impact on a military garrison's ability to hold out.
These guys are at... I dunno, roughly 1880-1910 level tech or so. At that level, the presence or absence of electrical power really has no meaningful impact on a military garrison's ability to hold out.
Chaper 41 - The Boys Are Back In Town
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
At that moment, the door swung open, and through came the usual gaggle of South Hunter representatives and their aides, led as usual by Visionary. There was a lot more guns than usual, they were flanked by soldiers all the way out the door, probably in the hall. Something was up.
"Private, set to fifty percent stun." I whispered to the boxie beside me, pulling the lever back myself. The light our muskets flickered blue, the capacitor humming quietly. Kennedy was saying something, and I heard Milly translate, greeting the team.
"Ah. Did you get a message from your missing siblings? Are they sa-"
"The company we posted around the Gateway has been routed." Visionary said simply, an edge to their voice that might be fury or terror or both. "Slaughtered by weapons they didn't understand. Explain yourself!"
Milly translated, her voice stuttering, shock clearly visible. The officers didn't have their fields up, this could get bad fast. There was a babble of voices, hushed, quiet, I was too far to hear, so I nodded to the guard across the room I turned my firing lock to them so they could see. They nodded and adjusted, and we started spreading out.
"Private, out the side door now. Go get the Theos and Doras ready to storm the room and the halls if they start shooting. Now, but look casual." I muttered, and he turned and headed out the door, walking stiffly. Judging by the body language, things were not going well. Visionary edging away, raising their voice, cuddlebug for I'm about done with you. Nervous soldiers with their hands on the cranks of their muskets.
Could we protect the officers on stun mode? There were six armed machines in this room. Took ten seconds to recharge on stun mode. Alternately, ten percent on lethal mode and we could shoot every second.
Could Miriam's body stop a musket ball? Milly's? Would they survive?
Then Kennedy took her own step back, her face worried, Milly stumbling through the translation. Miriam broke off from the group, leaning against the wall next to me.
"The stalkers are here." she said simply, fear in her voice. "The scene Visionary described sounds exactly like them."
"They came through the portal?" I asked, and she nodded.
"I suppose. That means… that means they hold the other side. We… we must have lost." she said, her voice trembling. "Oh God…"
"Miriam…" I said, trying to keep my best calming tones, "We're going to be okay. I promise."
"But what if-
"Private!" Kennedy called, and I glanced to see her looking at me. They knew my name, after all, and I don't think they knew I shared it with all my comrades. "Stalkers, a half-dozen of them. They want to strike back now, but we can't sustain field operations without a volta. I'll stay here with Sumner and the Gunners, work on the generator and guard our tech. Take your section, all the horses and all but four batteries, and go to the gateway. Just find out what's going on, do not engage if you can avoid it."
"Right away, ma'am." I snapped instantly, and dashed away swearing under my breath. The moment I left the door, I ran face to face into a crowd of machines in red and blue stacked against the door, weapons drawn, Sergeant Theo at the fore. Even Theda was there, still without a jacket, her rifle at the ready.
"Ma'am?" Old Theo asked.
"Stalkers. We're going to scout." I said simply, "Get the horses. And… Theda?"
"... yes, ma'am?" she asked, looking a little on the spot.
"Either you ditch the gun or you put on a red jacket."
---
Credit to my company, we were away in twenty-five minutes. Thanks to diligent repairs, we were up to 33 operational machines plus myself, Kelly, Miriam, and three skirmishers, and we had between us six repulsor horses, six tracked horses, and the dreadnought tractors. I gave Kelly, Miriam, the Skirmishers, as Old Theo the repulsors, put us three to a tracked horse, which is what we could get away with, and sourced a pair of heavy wagons from the cuddlebugs for the tractors.
We were the saddest bunch of dragoons in the history of the bloody Army, most likely, but we could also make forty miles an hour, and we were going to need it. Either they had the gateway open and we were being invaded, in which case we needed to know so we could get the fuck clear and figure out what to do, or something else was afoot and we didn't want to be blindsided.
We tore down the roads as fast as we could, tearing them up under grinding tracks and crashing wheels. Cuddlebugs pulling wagons off the side of the road, scattering at our approach.
I knew it was a scouting mission, but if they came through the portal, if they won the battle and prevented us from evacuating our casualties, it meant we couldn't put our fallen back together. It meant hundreds dead. Everyone in A section, all my friends from 4th company, Beckham, Murray, all of them.
A good soldier ought to be objective, impartial, emotionless, just doing their job. I ought to clamp down on this. Ought, ought, ought.
My hand tightened on the side of the wagon, the wood splintering under my fingers.
I could clamp down on it after I made them pay.
In the distance, on the horizon, there was a dark smear, growing as we got closer. I could taste ash on my sensors. Fire, driven by oil. They were burning the crops around the gateway. As we got closer, the smoke grew taller and taller, into a column that stretched into the sky, above us like storm clouds. The road filled with ragged, shocked-looking people stumbling away from their homes.
We passed the telegraph station, the soldiers arrayed at the walls with guns pointed toward the gateway, toward the fire, sandbags stacked and a trench dug perpendicular to the road. A light gun had been rolled out. We shouted to them to run as we passed, to get as far away as possible.
As the sun began to sink into the sky, pass below the smoke that crept all around us, the sky darkening, turning red like blood. Kelly wrapped his gas scarf around his face, his laser glasses streaked black from the fumes that hung in the air. The farms around us were abandoned to the fire, the forests skeletons, orange flames dancing on distant hills as it spread. I wondered if they set it on purpose, or if it was just collateral from their weaponry.
After ten minutes seeing nobody, we came across about a dozen cuddlebug soldiers lying in a ditch, coughing and sputtering in the fumes, looking worn, dejected, defeated. I called the group to a halt and hopped down, and while a few of them scrambled over themselves to get away and a few guns pointed in my direction, familiar body language soon calmed them down.
"Soldiers, what happened here?" I asked, and one of them, a little older, indicated with a claw toward the gateway.
"We're from the telegraph station. Our platoon was trying to find our siblings who got separated, but we ran into one of them. We're all that's left." they said. "Are you going to fight them?"
A cuddlebug platoon, I'd learned, was fifty soldiers.
"We are. Get back to the telegraph station. We'll take it from here." I said, and they made the head twitch that essentially meant no.
"They might be behind us. We're waiting for nightfall." they said. "When they won't be able to see us."
"They don't have eyes." I said, "It won't matter."
They slumped against the back of the ditch, staring up at the sky dejectedly. Unsure what to say, I gave the orders to start moving again, quarter-speed to keep the dust down.
"Once we get stuck in, make a break for it!" Theda called from the other wagon as it passed, and a ragged little cuddlebug cheer went up from the ditch.
Not long after, we started seeing bodies.
No, bodies was the wrong word. We started seeing remains, greasy stains in the dirt, the twisted remains of weapons, shattered pieces of carapace. Limbs, pieces of cloth, nothing intact. We had weapons raised all around us, looking for threats, but they were gone. Retreated back to the gateway to consolidate their position, presumably.
Perhaps fifteen minutes later, as we ground through the skeletal remains of the forest where we first emerged, the shadows long and the sun just a dancing red light through the smoke, we heard the pop of a local musket, and spotted movement through the burnt trees. Two soldiers, orange uniforms streaked black with soot, were scrambling over themselves toward the road, waving to us, shouting for help. I ordered us to dismount, but then was a purple streak from behind the soldiers, lighting up the forest like a lightning bolt, and one of them just ceased to exist. There was a flash of light and a thunderclap and pieces rained down around the trees, and their comrade stumbled and fell into the ash, screaming.
From behind the hill, we spotted a blue crest rising over the hill, walking forward with a sort of casual nonchalance, raising its weapon toward where the panicking cuddlebug soldier was hiding. Then there was a tonk from the other wagon and it staggered, one of its arms hanging loose, something thick and dark streaming out of it.
"Skirmish order, go! You five, hold the horses!" I called, leaping over the side of the wagon with my musket in hand, my sword rattling off my hip. The creature screeched and attempted to raise its weapon, but somebody discharged a musket into the ground in front of it and there was an enormous eruption of dirt and molten glass between us. It turned to retreat, and I lifted my own musket to my shoulder and fired.
Thirty-three years of relentless practice paid off as the blast of yellow light hit it dead in the small of the back, vapourizing its spine and dropping like a stone. We pushed forward around the body, everyone taking a knee as we looked for more, and I glanced to the cuddlebug soldier pushed against the tree.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, and they just sort of twitched, clearly too terrified to speak. I noticed a trickle of red down their thigh and side a moment later, and realized it was almost certainly from shrapnel. Bits of their dead sibling. "Can you walk?"
They twitched yes.
"Why are you here?" I asked, and after a few tries they croaked out some words.
"W-we're lost. We got lost, separated. The forest all looks the same." they muttered. "Where's Quick-Witted? Are they okay?"
Jesus.
"I'm sorry, I don't know." I answered honestly, not knowing if they were referring to their dead comrade or not. "Can you tell me where they are, and how many?"
"I don't know… we only ran into one or two at a time. They're invincible…" they muttered, and indicated for them to stand, lending my arm to help them up. After a moment of hesitation, scared even now to touch somebody outside their family, they gripped my arm and pulled themselves up, and I pointed to the body of the stalker, still smouldering.
"They aren't. We're here to kill them." I said, "Did they come through the gate?"
"N-no. They came from the forest. We thought we were being watched, a sentry disappeared two nights ago, and then they attacked this morning…"
"Go to the wagons. We will get you home." I said, and they stumbled up, looking forlorn at the spot where their comrade had been a second before. They left their musket.
If they didn't come through the gate… they must have already been here. And they must be trying to open it themselves.
"Private, set to fifty percent stun." I whispered to the boxie beside me, pulling the lever back myself. The light our muskets flickered blue, the capacitor humming quietly. Kennedy was saying something, and I heard Milly translate, greeting the team.
"Ah. Did you get a message from your missing siblings? Are they sa-"
"The company we posted around the Gateway has been routed." Visionary said simply, an edge to their voice that might be fury or terror or both. "Slaughtered by weapons they didn't understand. Explain yourself!"
Milly translated, her voice stuttering, shock clearly visible. The officers didn't have their fields up, this could get bad fast. There was a babble of voices, hushed, quiet, I was too far to hear, so I nodded to the guard across the room I turned my firing lock to them so they could see. They nodded and adjusted, and we started spreading out.
"Private, out the side door now. Go get the Theos and Doras ready to storm the room and the halls if they start shooting. Now, but look casual." I muttered, and he turned and headed out the door, walking stiffly. Judging by the body language, things were not going well. Visionary edging away, raising their voice, cuddlebug for I'm about done with you. Nervous soldiers with their hands on the cranks of their muskets.
Could we protect the officers on stun mode? There were six armed machines in this room. Took ten seconds to recharge on stun mode. Alternately, ten percent on lethal mode and we could shoot every second.
Could Miriam's body stop a musket ball? Milly's? Would they survive?
Then Kennedy took her own step back, her face worried, Milly stumbling through the translation. Miriam broke off from the group, leaning against the wall next to me.
"The stalkers are here." she said simply, fear in her voice. "The scene Visionary described sounds exactly like them."
"They came through the portal?" I asked, and she nodded.
"I suppose. That means… that means they hold the other side. We… we must have lost." she said, her voice trembling. "Oh God…"
"Miriam…" I said, trying to keep my best calming tones, "We're going to be okay. I promise."
"But what if-
"Private!" Kennedy called, and I glanced to see her looking at me. They knew my name, after all, and I don't think they knew I shared it with all my comrades. "Stalkers, a half-dozen of them. They want to strike back now, but we can't sustain field operations without a volta. I'll stay here with Sumner and the Gunners, work on the generator and guard our tech. Take your section, all the horses and all but four batteries, and go to the gateway. Just find out what's going on, do not engage if you can avoid it."
"Right away, ma'am." I snapped instantly, and dashed away swearing under my breath. The moment I left the door, I ran face to face into a crowd of machines in red and blue stacked against the door, weapons drawn, Sergeant Theo at the fore. Even Theda was there, still without a jacket, her rifle at the ready.
"Ma'am?" Old Theo asked.
"Stalkers. We're going to scout." I said simply, "Get the horses. And… Theda?"
"... yes, ma'am?" she asked, looking a little on the spot.
"Either you ditch the gun or you put on a red jacket."
---
Credit to my company, we were away in twenty-five minutes. Thanks to diligent repairs, we were up to 33 operational machines plus myself, Kelly, Miriam, and three skirmishers, and we had between us six repulsor horses, six tracked horses, and the dreadnought tractors. I gave Kelly, Miriam, the Skirmishers, as Old Theo the repulsors, put us three to a tracked horse, which is what we could get away with, and sourced a pair of heavy wagons from the cuddlebugs for the tractors.
We were the saddest bunch of dragoons in the history of the bloody Army, most likely, but we could also make forty miles an hour, and we were going to need it. Either they had the gateway open and we were being invaded, in which case we needed to know so we could get the fuck clear and figure out what to do, or something else was afoot and we didn't want to be blindsided.
We tore down the roads as fast as we could, tearing them up under grinding tracks and crashing wheels. Cuddlebugs pulling wagons off the side of the road, scattering at our approach.
I knew it was a scouting mission, but if they came through the portal, if they won the battle and prevented us from evacuating our casualties, it meant we couldn't put our fallen back together. It meant hundreds dead. Everyone in A section, all my friends from 4th company, Beckham, Murray, all of them.
A good soldier ought to be objective, impartial, emotionless, just doing their job. I ought to clamp down on this. Ought, ought, ought.
My hand tightened on the side of the wagon, the wood splintering under my fingers.
I could clamp down on it after I made them pay.
In the distance, on the horizon, there was a dark smear, growing as we got closer. I could taste ash on my sensors. Fire, driven by oil. They were burning the crops around the gateway. As we got closer, the smoke grew taller and taller, into a column that stretched into the sky, above us like storm clouds. The road filled with ragged, shocked-looking people stumbling away from their homes.
We passed the telegraph station, the soldiers arrayed at the walls with guns pointed toward the gateway, toward the fire, sandbags stacked and a trench dug perpendicular to the road. A light gun had been rolled out. We shouted to them to run as we passed, to get as far away as possible.
As the sun began to sink into the sky, pass below the smoke that crept all around us, the sky darkening, turning red like blood. Kelly wrapped his gas scarf around his face, his laser glasses streaked black from the fumes that hung in the air. The farms around us were abandoned to the fire, the forests skeletons, orange flames dancing on distant hills as it spread. I wondered if they set it on purpose, or if it was just collateral from their weaponry.
After ten minutes seeing nobody, we came across about a dozen cuddlebug soldiers lying in a ditch, coughing and sputtering in the fumes, looking worn, dejected, defeated. I called the group to a halt and hopped down, and while a few of them scrambled over themselves to get away and a few guns pointed in my direction, familiar body language soon calmed them down.
"Soldiers, what happened here?" I asked, and one of them, a little older, indicated with a claw toward the gateway.
"We're from the telegraph station. Our platoon was trying to find our siblings who got separated, but we ran into one of them. We're all that's left." they said. "Are you going to fight them?"
A cuddlebug platoon, I'd learned, was fifty soldiers.
"We are. Get back to the telegraph station. We'll take it from here." I said, and they made the head twitch that essentially meant no.
"They might be behind us. We're waiting for nightfall." they said. "When they won't be able to see us."
"They don't have eyes." I said, "It won't matter."
They slumped against the back of the ditch, staring up at the sky dejectedly. Unsure what to say, I gave the orders to start moving again, quarter-speed to keep the dust down.
"Once we get stuck in, make a break for it!" Theda called from the other wagon as it passed, and a ragged little cuddlebug cheer went up from the ditch.
Not long after, we started seeing bodies.
No, bodies was the wrong word. We started seeing remains, greasy stains in the dirt, the twisted remains of weapons, shattered pieces of carapace. Limbs, pieces of cloth, nothing intact. We had weapons raised all around us, looking for threats, but they were gone. Retreated back to the gateway to consolidate their position, presumably.
Perhaps fifteen minutes later, as we ground through the skeletal remains of the forest where we first emerged, the shadows long and the sun just a dancing red light through the smoke, we heard the pop of a local musket, and spotted movement through the burnt trees. Two soldiers, orange uniforms streaked black with soot, were scrambling over themselves toward the road, waving to us, shouting for help. I ordered us to dismount, but then was a purple streak from behind the soldiers, lighting up the forest like a lightning bolt, and one of them just ceased to exist. There was a flash of light and a thunderclap and pieces rained down around the trees, and their comrade stumbled and fell into the ash, screaming.
From behind the hill, we spotted a blue crest rising over the hill, walking forward with a sort of casual nonchalance, raising its weapon toward where the panicking cuddlebug soldier was hiding. Then there was a tonk from the other wagon and it staggered, one of its arms hanging loose, something thick and dark streaming out of it.
"Skirmish order, go! You five, hold the horses!" I called, leaping over the side of the wagon with my musket in hand, my sword rattling off my hip. The creature screeched and attempted to raise its weapon, but somebody discharged a musket into the ground in front of it and there was an enormous eruption of dirt and molten glass between us. It turned to retreat, and I lifted my own musket to my shoulder and fired.
Thirty-three years of relentless practice paid off as the blast of yellow light hit it dead in the small of the back, vapourizing its spine and dropping like a stone. We pushed forward around the body, everyone taking a knee as we looked for more, and I glanced to the cuddlebug soldier pushed against the tree.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, and they just sort of twitched, clearly too terrified to speak. I noticed a trickle of red down their thigh and side a moment later, and realized it was almost certainly from shrapnel. Bits of their dead sibling. "Can you walk?"
They twitched yes.
"Why are you here?" I asked, and after a few tries they croaked out some words.
"W-we're lost. We got lost, separated. The forest all looks the same." they muttered. "Where's Quick-Witted? Are they okay?"
Jesus.
"I'm sorry, I don't know." I answered honestly, not knowing if they were referring to their dead comrade or not. "Can you tell me where they are, and how many?"
"I don't know… we only ran into one or two at a time. They're invincible…" they muttered, and indicated for them to stand, lending my arm to help them up. After a moment of hesitation, scared even now to touch somebody outside their family, they gripped my arm and pulled themselves up, and I pointed to the body of the stalker, still smouldering.
"They aren't. We're here to kill them." I said, "Did they come through the gate?"
"N-no. They came from the forest. We thought we were being watched, a sentry disappeared two nights ago, and then they attacked this morning…"
"Go to the wagons. We will get you home." I said, and they stumbled up, looking forlorn at the spot where their comrade had been a second before. They left their musket.
If they didn't come through the gate… they must have already been here. And they must be trying to open it themselves.
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- Location
- Yes
Oh, well that's extremely cool. Really just a very good time.
Somewhere on this planet there is a ... Spawner? Factory? And we're going to have to skirmish about trying to find the damned thing. Either that or there's another gate, of course.
Somewhere on this planet there is a ... Spawner? Factory? And we're going to have to skirmish about trying to find the damned thing. Either that or there's another gate, of course.
- Location
- Someone else's head
That's a poorly timed complication. And a very nice twist at the end. This should be interesting.
Good chapter.
Good chapter.
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
Not so surprising. Messing with the gate site activated seeded defenses/traps that built an army where they came from. On this side gate activation wasn't enough, but continued local activity near the gate eventually also triggered the buildup of forces.
The enemy could be a Von Neuman machine put through the gates and left quiescent until a local trigger. Might not be created by the gate builders either. Sort of a Star Gate logic of "put a nuke through it set to go off if anybody but us uses it"--with the soldiers being their version of a nuke.
Be interesting if they recover an enemy weapon and use IT to jump start their Volta wagon.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
DUN DUN DUNNNNNN
Great update as usual!
Great update as usual!
Chapter 42 - Charge!
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
I stood up, taking stock of our forces. We were close to the gate, I was sure of it, the bend in the road seemed familiar. If I was right, we were less than a quarter-mile from the gate, just over the top of the hill. They might have even heard us.
"Sergeant Theo, take half and one of the revolver cannons and push down the flank, skirmish order!" I called out, indicating north. Looking back to the wagons, I saw Kelly shifting from around a tree, and Theda steadying her rifle nearby. "The rest of you, form up! Horace, over here, quickly now!"
Soldiers started shifting as Kelly ran over, his sword deactivated and at his shoulder, passing by the wounded cuddlebug as the machines guarding the horses scooped them up into the wagon. His eyes looked apprehensive, but not scared. Ready.
"Dora?" he asked.
"We're going to be pushing up the path, potentially right into their guns. I know we're just supposed to be scouting, but I think they're trying to open the gate, and we have to stop them now. You keep your head down and don't rush ahead, right?"
"Yes, Lieutenant." he said, as our ragged knot of a dozen soldiers, "We're going to draw their fire, and the Sergeant flanks them? L-shaped ambush?"
"Good lad." I said, glanced up. Theda was pacing forward, looking a little out of place, and indicated to the line. Properly, with that rifle, she ought to be with the sergeant, but too late for that now. "We have to go quickly, they likely already know we're here. Section! Double march!"
The line pushed quickly up the hill, the two of us walking behind, crashing through burnt tree trunks and fallen branches with abandon as they sprinted up the hill in a cloud of ash. I could hardly see what was in front of us, but that didn't matter, all that mattered was we press. Kelly was having to nearly sprint to keep up, the actuators in his boots whirring as they helped pull his legs along, faster than a natural run.
"Ahead, steady!" one of the noncoms called, and there were purple lights strobing between the figures ahead of us, throwing up dirt and washing heat over us. The Dora in front of us was hit and staggered back into me, and I put a steadying hand on her back and pushed her into the line, forward, forward. Another at the end of the line dropped like a rock and I glanced over to see her clutching a smoking hole in her sternum, trying to stagger back to her feet.
"Come on! We're not due the scrapyard yet!" Theda called, and I could feel the pace quickening as we reached the top of the hill, the enemy in sight. The Theo to our right tripped and fell, his foot severed by a blast, and I spotted the shooter turning and running in the gap in our line before Theda stepped into his place. Wherever I spotted the enemy, they were pulling back.
We might have made a tempting target, bunched up, but we were also like a ship at full sail. Anything in our way was getting crushed.
"Down! Down at the edge of the ridge!" I called, and everyone dropped ahead of us, giving me just a second to look down at the sight of the gateway. There it was, a monolith over the blackened landscape, it's scale obvious now with the forest canopy burnt away. There was maybe two dozen stalkers or more in the field, some running, some running toward us, spread out, scattered, unprepared. At the center, in front of the gate, there was a group clustered around one of the sides of the frame, clearing doing something.
"Theda, light them up!" I called, and Theda looked up from her scope, her eyes wild, joyous.
"Make ready, full power! Aim!" she called, "Fire!"
The muskets discharged in a corona of orange light and a cloud of steam, and down below the retreating Stalkers stumbled, fell, the nearest hit by several beams and turning into an instant pyre. One of the scorched trunks exploded from a near-miss, the dead tree collapsing in slow motion, the charred, interlinked branches in its canopy snapping loose.
One or two shots lanced back up at us, tearing up the top of the cliff. Something flashed against my screens, a soldier's shako was whipped from her head, but they weren't formed up yet, still shocked, still not ready.
"Up! Up and press the attack!" I called, and everyone scrambled to their feet, thundering down the hill. They outnumbered us, but we had shock. We had to prevent them from getting organized, keep forcing them back to the gate. "Bayonets!"
With a roar of ionizing air, the torches of the bayonets lit, like white flares in the rapidly falling evening, a wall of light ahead of us. One of the stalkers, caught behind a grove and moving too slowly, its shadow cast large against the field, staggered away, fired a wild shot, and we barreled into it, two bayonets catching it through the torso before we simply stepped over it, ground it underfoot. As we passed, Kelly swiped his sword across its throat.
We were close now. Ten of us left. More shots landing among our ranks, another soldier falling out the ranks with a red-hot hole punched through her hip. Kelly stumbled as a shot sparked on his shield, the lined wavered. They were trying to form at the gate, the fire getting thicker, and I could see molten metal dripping off the soldiers in front of us as we pushed into the heavy fire.
Theda twisted and fell as a shot struck her knee, her ankle left behind in her boot as she collapsed. Without missing a beat, she rolled over and fired past us, and one of the stalkers pitched away with most of its skull missing.
Another machine dropped like a stone, struggling to roll over, her uniform almost entirely burnt away and her body glowing red-hot from repeated impacts.
We weren't going to make it. Their guns were charging, we were going to take one more volley at maybe ten paces, it was going to tear us apart. I tried to put myself between the guns and Kelly.
Then, at once, there was a great flash and the crack of the revolver cannon as our forces on the flank began firing, musket fire slashing into their flank. Their line wavered, creatures trying to spread out and avoid the storm of fire, hesitating both to shoot and to stand firm. One of them broke off, ducking behind the gateway. Their guns pointed away from us at a critical moment.
"Huzzah!" I cried, the cheer taken up by the troops as we closed the last few paces.
We hit them like a battering ram, bayonet points first, the sheer force of it throwing our foe from their feet, the thunderclap of steel hitting carapace like a hammer on an anvil. The soldier ahead of me impaled his opposite number and literally lifted it bodily at the end of his bayonet, sending it tumbling behind him as he shouldered into the next one. The creature scrabbled for my leg, and I slammed my boot into its chest, leveled my musket, and fired, everything above its neck blown apart in a flash of light.
Discarding the smoking musket, I drew and ignited my sword, pushing my way past a reeling Dora and driving it point-first through the nearest alien creature I found, pushing it back against the pillar of the gate. It's clawed hand gripped at my face, sweeping my shako off, prying under my jaw, and I tore my sword down through its hips and slammed my forehead into its creepy little mandibles as hard as I could. It reeled, sinking down, and I drove my knee into its throat as it fell, feeling bone shatter and steel deform from the impact.
Something hit me in the back, a sharp pain, and I looked down to see a blade emerging through my gut, probably through a battery by the feel of it. I swung around blindly, my blade scoring the chest of a stalker as it pulled a long, thin blade back, hunched in strangely human a fighting stance, spittle dripping from its maw as it came in for another swing. I threw my blade in the way, punching with the hilt just like in the simulations, and caught it out, throwing its attack aside, but as I tried to come around and chop for its shoulder it twisted the sword in the way, deflecting the attack and stepping back.
This wasn't like the last one I fought up close, the one with the axe. This wasn't a mindless beast, this thing was trained, or perhaps programmed. I could hear the fighting all around me, but none of it existed, just this one stalker, just the tip of its blade as it wavered, stepped towards me.
He's feinting right, I thought, the instinct honed from hours and hours in the simulation, and I pressed forward instead, direct, my blade toward its chest. It reeled, the sword coming in awkwardly to intercept, and I drew it back, pulled his guard up, and came down like a hammerblow. It leapt back, lightning fast, and I drew my pistol, but just as quickly it flicked out the blade and the weapon dropped from my hand, along with three of my fingers.
I swear, despite the lack of eyes, the lack of anything that could be called a face, it looked smug a moment, pushing toward me with bladepoint up.
I threw my ruined hand at the tip, impaling it through the palm and wrenching the blade out of the way. Then I smashed my hilt into its face, dropping my sword as I kicked clean through its knee, and grabbed its arm as it fell, pulling it clean from its shoulder with a boot on its chest.
As the limb came free, I staggered back, feeling strangely faint, and took a brief moment to check my battery. 38%... yeah, that wasn't great. I gripped my sword, flicked it back on, and looked around for a fight to help in. It looked like things were pretty much done, though I helped a nearby Dora finish off one that had apparently taken her arm off by driving my sword through the back of her opponent.
With that, I sat down roughly against the ash-strewn ground, feeling a little like everything was spinning, the darkness of the oncoming night rushing in quickly. It was remarkable how for all my armour, the tiniest bit of damage in the wrong place was all it took. 29%...
"Horace, you alright?" I called, and a moment later the ensign came into view, looking at me with concern. The front of his jacket was soaked with dark liquid, but from what was dribbled on his trousers it looked like blue Stalker blood, thankfully.
"I'm fine, Dora. Are you damaged? What's wrong?" he asked, then a moment later there was a snapping of muskets and some muttered swearing.
"I think the bastard nicked my batteries." I muttered. "What are you machines shooting at?"
"There's one doing a runner right now, ma'am. Up the hill, long range. Funny looking head on it." one of the Theos said, and it took me a second to make the connection, back to the battle. The ones without crests…
"Cease fire!" I cried, sitting up as best I can. "Theda! You see the bastard on the hill?"
"Ja?" I could hear Theda reply, from somewhere on the other side of the field.
"Stun the fucker!" I called.
There was a short silence, a tonk from her rifle, and we watched a bright blue tracer pass almost lazily overhead in a sharp arc. A few seconds later, there was a flash just visible from behind the assembled soldiers.
"Got 'im!"
"Sergeant Theo, take half and one of the revolver cannons and push down the flank, skirmish order!" I called out, indicating north. Looking back to the wagons, I saw Kelly shifting from around a tree, and Theda steadying her rifle nearby. "The rest of you, form up! Horace, over here, quickly now!"
Soldiers started shifting as Kelly ran over, his sword deactivated and at his shoulder, passing by the wounded cuddlebug as the machines guarding the horses scooped them up into the wagon. His eyes looked apprehensive, but not scared. Ready.
"Dora?" he asked.
"We're going to be pushing up the path, potentially right into their guns. I know we're just supposed to be scouting, but I think they're trying to open the gate, and we have to stop them now. You keep your head down and don't rush ahead, right?"
"Yes, Lieutenant." he said, as our ragged knot of a dozen soldiers, "We're going to draw their fire, and the Sergeant flanks them? L-shaped ambush?"
"Good lad." I said, glanced up. Theda was pacing forward, looking a little out of place, and indicated to the line. Properly, with that rifle, she ought to be with the sergeant, but too late for that now. "We have to go quickly, they likely already know we're here. Section! Double march!"
The line pushed quickly up the hill, the two of us walking behind, crashing through burnt tree trunks and fallen branches with abandon as they sprinted up the hill in a cloud of ash. I could hardly see what was in front of us, but that didn't matter, all that mattered was we press. Kelly was having to nearly sprint to keep up, the actuators in his boots whirring as they helped pull his legs along, faster than a natural run.
"Ahead, steady!" one of the noncoms called, and there were purple lights strobing between the figures ahead of us, throwing up dirt and washing heat over us. The Dora in front of us was hit and staggered back into me, and I put a steadying hand on her back and pushed her into the line, forward, forward. Another at the end of the line dropped like a rock and I glanced over to see her clutching a smoking hole in her sternum, trying to stagger back to her feet.
"Come on! We're not due the scrapyard yet!" Theda called, and I could feel the pace quickening as we reached the top of the hill, the enemy in sight. The Theo to our right tripped and fell, his foot severed by a blast, and I spotted the shooter turning and running in the gap in our line before Theda stepped into his place. Wherever I spotted the enemy, they were pulling back.
We might have made a tempting target, bunched up, but we were also like a ship at full sail. Anything in our way was getting crushed.
"Down! Down at the edge of the ridge!" I called, and everyone dropped ahead of us, giving me just a second to look down at the sight of the gateway. There it was, a monolith over the blackened landscape, it's scale obvious now with the forest canopy burnt away. There was maybe two dozen stalkers or more in the field, some running, some running toward us, spread out, scattered, unprepared. At the center, in front of the gate, there was a group clustered around one of the sides of the frame, clearing doing something.
"Theda, light them up!" I called, and Theda looked up from her scope, her eyes wild, joyous.
"Make ready, full power! Aim!" she called, "Fire!"
The muskets discharged in a corona of orange light and a cloud of steam, and down below the retreating Stalkers stumbled, fell, the nearest hit by several beams and turning into an instant pyre. One of the scorched trunks exploded from a near-miss, the dead tree collapsing in slow motion, the charred, interlinked branches in its canopy snapping loose.
One or two shots lanced back up at us, tearing up the top of the cliff. Something flashed against my screens, a soldier's shako was whipped from her head, but they weren't formed up yet, still shocked, still not ready.
"Up! Up and press the attack!" I called, and everyone scrambled to their feet, thundering down the hill. They outnumbered us, but we had shock. We had to prevent them from getting organized, keep forcing them back to the gate. "Bayonets!"
With a roar of ionizing air, the torches of the bayonets lit, like white flares in the rapidly falling evening, a wall of light ahead of us. One of the stalkers, caught behind a grove and moving too slowly, its shadow cast large against the field, staggered away, fired a wild shot, and we barreled into it, two bayonets catching it through the torso before we simply stepped over it, ground it underfoot. As we passed, Kelly swiped his sword across its throat.
We were close now. Ten of us left. More shots landing among our ranks, another soldier falling out the ranks with a red-hot hole punched through her hip. Kelly stumbled as a shot sparked on his shield, the lined wavered. They were trying to form at the gate, the fire getting thicker, and I could see molten metal dripping off the soldiers in front of us as we pushed into the heavy fire.
Theda twisted and fell as a shot struck her knee, her ankle left behind in her boot as she collapsed. Without missing a beat, she rolled over and fired past us, and one of the stalkers pitched away with most of its skull missing.
Another machine dropped like a stone, struggling to roll over, her uniform almost entirely burnt away and her body glowing red-hot from repeated impacts.
We weren't going to make it. Their guns were charging, we were going to take one more volley at maybe ten paces, it was going to tear us apart. I tried to put myself between the guns and Kelly.
Then, at once, there was a great flash and the crack of the revolver cannon as our forces on the flank began firing, musket fire slashing into their flank. Their line wavered, creatures trying to spread out and avoid the storm of fire, hesitating both to shoot and to stand firm. One of them broke off, ducking behind the gateway. Their guns pointed away from us at a critical moment.
"Huzzah!" I cried, the cheer taken up by the troops as we closed the last few paces.
We hit them like a battering ram, bayonet points first, the sheer force of it throwing our foe from their feet, the thunderclap of steel hitting carapace like a hammer on an anvil. The soldier ahead of me impaled his opposite number and literally lifted it bodily at the end of his bayonet, sending it tumbling behind him as he shouldered into the next one. The creature scrabbled for my leg, and I slammed my boot into its chest, leveled my musket, and fired, everything above its neck blown apart in a flash of light.
Discarding the smoking musket, I drew and ignited my sword, pushing my way past a reeling Dora and driving it point-first through the nearest alien creature I found, pushing it back against the pillar of the gate. It's clawed hand gripped at my face, sweeping my shako off, prying under my jaw, and I tore my sword down through its hips and slammed my forehead into its creepy little mandibles as hard as I could. It reeled, sinking down, and I drove my knee into its throat as it fell, feeling bone shatter and steel deform from the impact.
Something hit me in the back, a sharp pain, and I looked down to see a blade emerging through my gut, probably through a battery by the feel of it. I swung around blindly, my blade scoring the chest of a stalker as it pulled a long, thin blade back, hunched in strangely human a fighting stance, spittle dripping from its maw as it came in for another swing. I threw my blade in the way, punching with the hilt just like in the simulations, and caught it out, throwing its attack aside, but as I tried to come around and chop for its shoulder it twisted the sword in the way, deflecting the attack and stepping back.
This wasn't like the last one I fought up close, the one with the axe. This wasn't a mindless beast, this thing was trained, or perhaps programmed. I could hear the fighting all around me, but none of it existed, just this one stalker, just the tip of its blade as it wavered, stepped towards me.
He's feinting right, I thought, the instinct honed from hours and hours in the simulation, and I pressed forward instead, direct, my blade toward its chest. It reeled, the sword coming in awkwardly to intercept, and I drew it back, pulled his guard up, and came down like a hammerblow. It leapt back, lightning fast, and I drew my pistol, but just as quickly it flicked out the blade and the weapon dropped from my hand, along with three of my fingers.
I swear, despite the lack of eyes, the lack of anything that could be called a face, it looked smug a moment, pushing toward me with bladepoint up.
I threw my ruined hand at the tip, impaling it through the palm and wrenching the blade out of the way. Then I smashed my hilt into its face, dropping my sword as I kicked clean through its knee, and grabbed its arm as it fell, pulling it clean from its shoulder with a boot on its chest.
As the limb came free, I staggered back, feeling strangely faint, and took a brief moment to check my battery. 38%... yeah, that wasn't great. I gripped my sword, flicked it back on, and looked around for a fight to help in. It looked like things were pretty much done, though I helped a nearby Dora finish off one that had apparently taken her arm off by driving my sword through the back of her opponent.
With that, I sat down roughly against the ash-strewn ground, feeling a little like everything was spinning, the darkness of the oncoming night rushing in quickly. It was remarkable how for all my armour, the tiniest bit of damage in the wrong place was all it took. 29%...
"Horace, you alright?" I called, and a moment later the ensign came into view, looking at me with concern. The front of his jacket was soaked with dark liquid, but from what was dribbled on his trousers it looked like blue Stalker blood, thankfully.
"I'm fine, Dora. Are you damaged? What's wrong?" he asked, then a moment later there was a snapping of muskets and some muttered swearing.
"I think the bastard nicked my batteries." I muttered. "What are you machines shooting at?"
"There's one doing a runner right now, ma'am. Up the hill, long range. Funny looking head on it." one of the Theos said, and it took me a second to make the connection, back to the battle. The ones without crests…
"Cease fire!" I cried, sitting up as best I can. "Theda! You see the bastard on the hill?"
"Ja?" I could hear Theda reply, from somewhere on the other side of the field.
"Stun the fucker!" I called.
There was a short silence, a tonk from her rifle, and we watched a bright blue tracer pass almost lazily overhead in a sharp arc. A few seconds later, there was a flash just visible from behind the assembled soldiers.
"Got 'im!"
- Pronouns
- He/Him
things you can do when you have ROBOT HANDS!
HUZZAH
God, there are not enough Napoleonic charge scenes in fiction.
Also, quick question for @open_sketch : is the revolver cannon more like a machine/gatling gun or more like canister shot?
God, there are not enough Napoleonic charge scenes in fiction.
Also, quick question for @open_sketch : is the revolver cannon more like a machine/gatling gun or more like canister shot?
- Location
- Washington DC
Guessing it's more like a Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon:
Hotchkiss gun - Wikipedia
Hotchkiss gun - Wikipedia
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
More like a machine gun. it's basically a Puckle Gun E-Web.
- Location
- Universitas Oxoniensis
Huzzah! Another fantastic installment. But the ever dwindling numbers worry me...
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Agreed. However, I think this arc is starting to reach a conclusion. Based on the description of the one with the strange head that Theda stunned and the stalker Lt. Dora killed, I suspect they were the leaders of the group that originally ambushed Dora's group at the gate during the battle that we saw in Chapter 22.
Hopefully with the capture of the strange one and the death of the autonomous stalker, the enemy resistance has been largely defeated and this arc can start to come to a close. Maybe the stalkers were not able to open the gate because of a lack of power. If that is the case, Lt. Kennedy's volta generator is going to get made just in time to be useful to get home.
Chapter 43 - The Queen/Home Together
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
Returning from a battle is always strange.
The journey lacks the tension of the movement into battle, the nervous anticipation, the questions. All that has given way to the sort of stunned disassociation, as reality felt so much less real on the other side of experiences that intense.
One of my soldiers, I don't remember who, pulled out my damaged battery and stopped the short, and Sergeant Theo helped me back into the wagon., where I collapsed against the side. By force of habit, I pulled out my pistol, wincing at the notch in the handle from the stalker blade, and opened the lock to inspect the firing crystal.
There was a clattering beside me, and I looked over to see Theda being unceremoniously dropped into the wagon, clutching her shoe in her hands. Almost absently, she turned it over and shook it, and her foot and ankle clattered out onto the floorboards. There was a molten channel from the front of her shin to the back, cables melted together in a blackened smear, oil dripping from a ruptured hydraulic actuator as it was inverted. The melted remains of her trouser's cuff and her stocking clung to it, reduced to a consistency like cobwebs by the heat.
"Oh, that's going to take some fixing." she muttered, setting it aside. "What happened to you?"
I almost reminded her to call me ma'am, or at least my rank, but one thing at a time.
"I got stabbed." I said, worming my thumb under my jacket and through the hole carved by the blade. "Tiny little hole, right through my number two battery. Down to six percent charge from the short."
"Nasty." she said simply, inspecting the empty shoe curiously. "You get the one that did it?"
"It's dead. It's strange, sometimes they fight with intelligence and discipline, sometimes they just throw themselves at us like mindless berserkers." I said. "I wonder why that is?"
We were soon joined by five other damaged machines, all of them in bad states, but nobody offline, fortunately. Immediately to our left was the Dora with the hole through the center of her chest, her ruined jacket and waistcoat draped over her like a blanket. Through the hole in the back, I could see the broken metal, cracked and fused silicone, the deep wound all the way through her vital workings, and she wavered in her seat as though drunk. She was clearly in quite a bit of pain, which meant there were deeper issues, something we couldn't address with our trauma mechanic back in the city.
"Private? How are you holding up?" Theda asked, and she gave a pained chuckle and waved a dismissive hand.
"I'll be okay. I'm gonna." she replied, her accent thick, Scottish. "That was glorious. Never had so much fun."
"Glad to hear it." I said.
"Couldn't done without getting hit, though." she continued, wincing. "Fuckers shot my tits off. Fucking expensive."
"Next time we meet, bill them." Theda suggested, and she laughed a moment before doubling over, the movement clearly too much.
"... fuck it hurts." she muttered, listing over a little. "Jesus Christ."
"We can turn you off until you're repaired?" I offered, and she shook her head desperately.
"Don't want to, ma'am. No offence… but I'm not sure I'll booted up again at this rate. If something's gonna kill me, I wanna see it coming."
"Amen." one of the other machines replied, half his face sheared off by some kind of sharp impact. "I'm gonna die on my feet."
"Lucky bastard." another machine, her leg a ruined mess from a hit in her thigh, replied.
"We're not going to die." I said sternly. "Cut that talk out, right now. I know things are bad, but this isn't the end. We're going to get that generator, we're going to kill all these fucks, and we're going to get home. Then there's a fucking reckoning coming for the bastards who sent cuddlebugs with black powder against those things."
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but it wasn't exactly an easy thing with a regiment against them. What chance do two sections have?" the first machine asked. "I just want to go down swinging."
"I hadn't really expected my career to be so short." the Theo said, and a quick check made it clear he was one of the new ones. "Going for the record, I guess."
"Oh, definitely not you, Theo. The Crown hasn't even finished paying for you yet, you are not allowed to die." Theda said. "Enough of this defeatist talk, all of you. You are still here. There are more than a score of alien bastards who aren't. Show some fucking gratitude, mein Gott."
"Yes, Sergeant." they all echoed. I heard some commotion, and I peered over the edge of the wagon at the other wagonbed, where three soldiers were wrestling with the alien prisoner, who had apparently just fought off the stun. It took a swing at one of them with a clawed hand that pried the armoured glass off the machine's eyes, then the other two shot it point blank in the back with blue flashes from their stunners and it crashed into the wagonbed.
"... besides, if we can get that thing to talk, we might know what we're up against." I said, sinking back down, pain shooting through me from the hole in my middle. "Goddamnit… Sergeant, remind me not to get stabbed next time."
"If you need a reminder, there's no helping you." she replied.
---
My remaining batteries did not carry me all the way home, unfortunately. I woke up back in my room, Miriam fussing over me, doing something to my face, and when I reached out to push her hand away I couldn't help but notice three new fingers.
"... I'm not looking forward to having to return all these parts." I muttered, and she shushed me, leaning back in. "What are you doing?"
"Replacing the epoxy in your scars. It melted off." she replied, smudging something with her thumb. "Lieutenant Kennedy wants to talk to you."
"I'll bet. Probably not happy I stuck around and fought." I muttered.
"Stop that." she replied sternly, waving the epoxy applicator in my face. "No more of that talk, remember? You taking a prisoner may have saved us. But moreover, she's worried sick for you."
"Why?" I asked stupidly, and Miriam looked at me with great exasperation. "... right, yes. I"ll go talk to her, once you're done. What happened with the prisoner?"
"Well, Milly was going to help translate, but that was no help, it doesn't want to talk and might not be able to. We've got it in the cuddlebug dungeon and we're stunning the damn thing every time it wakes up because otherwise it tries to kill us. Doesn't really seem to get self-preservation. But…"
"But?" I asked.
"It's got a bracelet on its arm like all the others, but this one is active. We figure they shut down if they die so their enemies can't use it, but this one… it's tabulator of some sort." she explained. "Milly was telling me earlier, though I couldn't follow it all. She's as much of a bookworm as her Miss, I swear."
I heard the door click behind me, and Miriam mutter "Speak of the devil…" as I peered out of the sleeping pit. Milly was walking through, with Kennedy and Sumner close behind.
"Dora! Are you alright?" she called.
"Hello Lieutenant. I was just getting my makeup done." I remarked, and she laughed, sitting at the edge of the pit. "I'm fine, I promise you. I'm not looking to die more than once here."
"You better not. You good to move?" she asked, and I sat up as best I could, sparks of pain playing through me.
"As good as I'll be, I suspect. I hear we have information?"
Sumner sat down as well, clearly buzzing with excitement, and unfolded a map between us. On it was a crudely rendered landmass I'd never seen before, but I soon realized it was a part of this world, identifying our city, the gate, the desert to the north and the mountain forest, several other urban areas and a squiggle of roads and train lines. And in the northern valley, not ten kilometers from the old fortress, a glowing blue icon.
"That's them, then?" I asked, tracing a path from the city up to it. A dotted line formed behind my finger, the label trailing it listing the distance, marking terrain and elevation, calculating how long it would take to march. "Their base?"
"That's the thought." Kennedy replied.
"Doctor Zsanett says our prisoner is a clone! Nearly genetically identical to the footsoldier sorts, a bit more complex. I guess it's like an officer." Sumner said. "But not, uh, not like us. It's still a genetically engineered war machine, not really a person."
"So like me." I replied, and Miriam grumbled from where she was putting away her epoxy. "Bad joke, sorry. So not really a chance of brokering peace?"
"Doesn't look like this. We're pretty sure these are… they're like an immune response to protect the gates, not a civilization. Whoever made them has left them unattended, dormant bases, and when something unexpected interacts with the gates it comes online and starts cloning soldiers." Kennedy explains. "That's my theory, anyway."
"Makes sense to me, and it explains why their numbers ramp up like that. And why the base is so far from the… oh."
"Oh?" Sumner asked.
"... that's why you need me to move. We need to go deal with this, don't we?" I asked. "Before they make more."
"As soon as possible." Kennedy replied. "We don't have time to finish the generator. We have to go now. Within the hour if we can. We were waiting on you and some of the other repaired machines to recharge, because we'll need everyone we can get."
I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet, stretching as best I could, shooting pains from damaged systems still rolling through me.
"What's the status of the generator?" I asked. "And what do the cuddlebugs know?"
"Most of the way done, just waiting on the cuddlebugs to finish smelting us the copper coils we need." she said. "I told the South Hunters. They tried to pledge us forces to help."
"You turned them down, of course?" I asked.
"Of course. They'll just get in the way." she replied, then sighed. "I just worry what will happen after. Especially if we take a lot of losses."
Cautiously, very carefully. I took her hand, and instantly she relaxed. I found myself wishing, in that moment, that the gesture had meant to me what it meant to her.
"That's for tomorrow. We have a planet to save."
"... ew." Sumner muttered, and I released her hand. Yeah. A little ew.
"A-ah. Well, I have to go get everything packed up. Collect your gear, I'll see you downstairs in a half an hour." Kennedy said, picking herself up. "You too, Lydia. And don't forget your shield, for heaven's sake."
The two of them shuffled out, and I fought off Miriam trying to polish my cheeks or somesuch thing and told her I was going to talk a quick walk to make sure everything was working for the march. Mostly, though, I just needed a moment alone with my thoughts.
There was clearly a panic in the cuddlebug estate, with important-looking officials and their servants moving this way and that, carrying stacks of paper and supplies, a buzz of constant activity. I found myself thinking it really was a little like an anthill, though I suppose that comparison was a bit unfair, prompted by their superficial similarity to the Earth insect. All of them gave me a wide berth, but I wasn't seeing fear on them anymore. Awe for a few, new ones I supposed, but they'd gotten used to us in our short stay here.
I climbed the stairs to the highest floor, the fourth, not really sure where I was going, and while I was sure the guards would have preferred I didn't carry through the doors they also clearly didn't have the heart to stop me. The floor here was just as beautifully minimalist as the rest of the palace, the same elegant and smooth marble, the same gaslamps, but everything was quieter, less busy, more reserved.
At the end of the hall was a small figure, talking with another, who threw a glance toward me, clearly startled. They were dressed in a long, flowing garment of white, and something about them looked so very different. Curious, I followed down the hall as they finished their conversation, releasing the hand of the person they were talking to, who fled back into their room, and they looked up at me with, eyes wide.
Everything about them was different. Rounder, softer, shorter, wider. Fewer pieces of hard carapace, eyes like a baby deer. I thought perhaps they bore some resemblance of the local cuddlebugs, in colouration and the shape of their heads, but I'd never seen a cuddlebug like them, and I couldn't help but want to know more.
"Hello." I said, leaning against the wall, trying to look casual. "I'm Dora. Who are you?"
They responded with a sound that had no meaning in my dictionary, and I asked what it meant, Wishing I had Sumner to help translate.
"It doesn't mean anything. It's just my name." they replied. "It was my -----'s name as well, and their ------'s. If it had a meaning, I don't know it."
Another blank, another missing word.
"I see." I said neutrally.
"You're one of the visitors from the stars." they said, not really a question, looking over me, and then they reached a hand out toward my face. I held very still as their claw touched my cheek, traced along it, to the intents where the epoxy hid my scar, around my eye. I'd never seen a cuddlebug voluntarily touch one of us yet, but this one did it unhesitatingly. "You really are made of metal."
"It's true. I'm a machine." I said, showing my flexing hand, the joints articulating, the new fingers gleaming. "I was made by very skilled artists in a city which hangs above a star called Procyon."
"Made?" they asked. "With tools, like a train?"
"That's right." I said, and they laughed, this little high-pitched squeaking noise. They gestured with a claw to the doors at the end of the hall, and I followed them out to a balcony that looked over the city, over the walls, the gleaming boulevard that led out into the dark wilderness beyond.
"That is so strange! You are not the same as the visitors which have everyone so scared, are you? The ones here to kill us all?"
"No, they are different. Here with destructive ends." I replied.
"And what are your ends? Why were you made, visitor?"
"To protect people." I explained. "That is why I exist. I'm very lucky to have a purpose like that."
"... that is also strange." they said, contemplating me, their hand touching mine. "I have a purpose as well, though I do not think of it as particularly lucky."
"You are a Queen?" I guessed, and they nodded.
"More than that. I am what keeps my family loyal." they said, leaning against the balcony. "I protect people too, I supposed."
"I'm afraid I don't follow." I said.
"Do you know about our history, visitor?" they asked, and I responded in the negative. "Before, every family lived only for their own queens, and we just fought constantly. There were some alliances, but they were fragile. When the Orange Empire came here, took my -------'s and held them, it stopped the fighting. That's my purpose. As long as I'm here, I protect them."
Everything about that rang hollow to my ears. Even if it was true, there was sorts of violence that wasn't war, violence that was clearly endemic here. Violence that machines like me weren't made to stop.
"Is that true?" I asked.
"I tell myself it is." they responded. "Because it's my purpose."
"I understand." I replied simply. I knew how that felt.
There was a part of me that wished in that moment I could simply take them, leap from this balcony, find their family. Upset the whole system at once. Bring it all down. But it wouldn't work: they had siblings that would be endangered, the system was too big for one mission queen to crush. I also tried to think of something brave and clever to say, to plant the seeds of a revolution, but there was nothing there either. They already knew their position better than I ever could, anything I could say would be trite, useless.
The best I could hope for was that if I could a way home, I could hold the door open long enough for my society to offer the material aid which could empower change. It was too big for me.
"Is there anything I can do to help you?" I asked finally, and they nodded.
"Nothing can change if we are dead." they replied. "Perhaps you can give us time, visitor."
---
We took every expedience we could north, aided by the locals. Their trains carried us half the way, packed in bare cargo cars, the wheels groaning with the weight of our metal bodies. The rest of the day's march carried us to the edge of the desert along their roads, the final leg done in the night. The ensigns road on the repulsor horses, clearly bone-tired by the end, the planet's rings above us giving the only illumination.
We brought everyone along, leaving only our fallen, with a warning that we had a full catalog of every part on them and we would know if they took anything. They would, of course, try to study them in our absence, they would be stupid not to, but if we won we ought to be back in time to prevent them from learning anything unfortuante. If we lost… if we lost it wouldn't matter either way.
We were accompanied by cuddlebug soldiers every step, locals and occupiers from the empire in equal measure at the trainyards, along the roads, everywhere. The news had raced ahead of us on telegraph lines, they all knew who we were and why we were here. Their grim faces and stark terror surrounded us at every turn.
It wasn't a burning horizon and black clouds of oil smoke choking the air, but it was very nearly as ominous.
We called a halt for the night at the edge of a great valley, along a windswept cliff, and I stood with Kennedy and the ensigns, with Beckham's spyglass in my hand, sweeping over the cliffs opposite.
"I had meant to ask. What did we do with our prisoner?" I asked.
"... I had it shot." Kennedy replied, her voice tensing up. "It was that, sacrifice three of our soldiers to watch it in our absence, bring it with us and potentially warn them through their network, or leave the cuddlebugs to try and contain it."
"I don't disagree." I said, and intellectually I didn't, even if it sent a shiver of disgust through me.
"If we survive this, the courts can decide." she said tersely. "There, I see it. 12 degrees, at the edge of the mountain. I count three stalkers moving in and out."
The narrow mouth of the cave resolved in my spyglass, the bodies of our alien foes picked out in black against the cool whites of the thermal sensor. The cave was tiny, perhaps fitting two of us abreast at the widest point, a crack in the cliffside. We wouldn't have spotted it without the movement of the alien creatures.
"I don't think we're going to be able to drop a shell in there." I pointed out, and Kennedy sighed, handing the glass to Sumner and kicking a rock from the edge of the cliff.
"No, it looks like there's a bend in the cave. We'll have to go set a charge manually if we want to destroy the base." she said. "I was afraid of that."
"We should use the last transmutative shell." I said firmly. "It's the only way to make sure."
"Yeah." she said, her voice breaking. "You're right."
"Can we do that?" Sumner asked.
"I'll rig a timed charge. We'll have to fight our way to the cave and get it inside." she said. "We'll cover you as best we can with the guns, Dora."
It would be incredibly risky. And transmutative charges were delicate, fail-safe. If it got shot, it would turn into a dud. If we left it and one of them cut into it, it would be defused. If we placed it wrong, set the timer wrong, it would all be for nothing. We would have to be very careful, very thorough. It had to go off, even if I had to carry it in myself and set it off with my own hand.
It was my fault we were here at all. If it came down to it, it ought to be me. Ought to. Ought.
"We'll get it done." I assured her. "We should sleep."
"Yeah." Kennedy said. "Ensigns, go. We're up at dawn. Dora, a word?"
The ensigns tramped off, yawning and exhausted, the long march battling their obvious anxiety. Kennedy stepped a little closer, her face a map of worry.
"Diana?" I asked.
"I'm sorry about everything." she said. "I… I really went out of line. But… I know you well enough to know I need to ask this. Please don't do anything stupid tomorrow."
"... Diana?" I asked, overwhelmed, unsure what she was saying.
"Don't… don't stay behind to make sure the bomb goes off, don't throw yourself into certain death. Be safe. You deserve to go home too." she said. "I don't care if it's the only way or whatever justification you come up with. We're both making it home, or neither of us are."
"... I can't promise that." I said, pulling the spyglass back to my eye, scanning their position again. "You know that."
"Dora… come on." she said, pleading. "Don't do this."
Very slowly, I lowered the glass.
"I'll try."
---
I awoke the next morning to the sound of cannon.
The journey lacks the tension of the movement into battle, the nervous anticipation, the questions. All that has given way to the sort of stunned disassociation, as reality felt so much less real on the other side of experiences that intense.
One of my soldiers, I don't remember who, pulled out my damaged battery and stopped the short, and Sergeant Theo helped me back into the wagon., where I collapsed against the side. By force of habit, I pulled out my pistol, wincing at the notch in the handle from the stalker blade, and opened the lock to inspect the firing crystal.
There was a clattering beside me, and I looked over to see Theda being unceremoniously dropped into the wagon, clutching her shoe in her hands. Almost absently, she turned it over and shook it, and her foot and ankle clattered out onto the floorboards. There was a molten channel from the front of her shin to the back, cables melted together in a blackened smear, oil dripping from a ruptured hydraulic actuator as it was inverted. The melted remains of her trouser's cuff and her stocking clung to it, reduced to a consistency like cobwebs by the heat.
"Oh, that's going to take some fixing." she muttered, setting it aside. "What happened to you?"
I almost reminded her to call me ma'am, or at least my rank, but one thing at a time.
"I got stabbed." I said, worming my thumb under my jacket and through the hole carved by the blade. "Tiny little hole, right through my number two battery. Down to six percent charge from the short."
"Nasty." she said simply, inspecting the empty shoe curiously. "You get the one that did it?"
"It's dead. It's strange, sometimes they fight with intelligence and discipline, sometimes they just throw themselves at us like mindless berserkers." I said. "I wonder why that is?"
We were soon joined by five other damaged machines, all of them in bad states, but nobody offline, fortunately. Immediately to our left was the Dora with the hole through the center of her chest, her ruined jacket and waistcoat draped over her like a blanket. Through the hole in the back, I could see the broken metal, cracked and fused silicone, the deep wound all the way through her vital workings, and she wavered in her seat as though drunk. She was clearly in quite a bit of pain, which meant there were deeper issues, something we couldn't address with our trauma mechanic back in the city.
"Private? How are you holding up?" Theda asked, and she gave a pained chuckle and waved a dismissive hand.
"I'll be okay. I'm gonna." she replied, her accent thick, Scottish. "That was glorious. Never had so much fun."
"Glad to hear it." I said.
"Couldn't done without getting hit, though." she continued, wincing. "Fuckers shot my tits off. Fucking expensive."
"Next time we meet, bill them." Theda suggested, and she laughed a moment before doubling over, the movement clearly too much.
"... fuck it hurts." she muttered, listing over a little. "Jesus Christ."
"We can turn you off until you're repaired?" I offered, and she shook her head desperately.
"Don't want to, ma'am. No offence… but I'm not sure I'll booted up again at this rate. If something's gonna kill me, I wanna see it coming."
"Amen." one of the other machines replied, half his face sheared off by some kind of sharp impact. "I'm gonna die on my feet."
"Lucky bastard." another machine, her leg a ruined mess from a hit in her thigh, replied.
"We're not going to die." I said sternly. "Cut that talk out, right now. I know things are bad, but this isn't the end. We're going to get that generator, we're going to kill all these fucks, and we're going to get home. Then there's a fucking reckoning coming for the bastards who sent cuddlebugs with black powder against those things."
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but it wasn't exactly an easy thing with a regiment against them. What chance do two sections have?" the first machine asked. "I just want to go down swinging."
"I hadn't really expected my career to be so short." the Theo said, and a quick check made it clear he was one of the new ones. "Going for the record, I guess."
"Oh, definitely not you, Theo. The Crown hasn't even finished paying for you yet, you are not allowed to die." Theda said. "Enough of this defeatist talk, all of you. You are still here. There are more than a score of alien bastards who aren't. Show some fucking gratitude, mein Gott."
"Yes, Sergeant." they all echoed. I heard some commotion, and I peered over the edge of the wagon at the other wagonbed, where three soldiers were wrestling with the alien prisoner, who had apparently just fought off the stun. It took a swing at one of them with a clawed hand that pried the armoured glass off the machine's eyes, then the other two shot it point blank in the back with blue flashes from their stunners and it crashed into the wagonbed.
"... besides, if we can get that thing to talk, we might know what we're up against." I said, sinking back down, pain shooting through me from the hole in my middle. "Goddamnit… Sergeant, remind me not to get stabbed next time."
"If you need a reminder, there's no helping you." she replied.
---
My remaining batteries did not carry me all the way home, unfortunately. I woke up back in my room, Miriam fussing over me, doing something to my face, and when I reached out to push her hand away I couldn't help but notice three new fingers.
"... I'm not looking forward to having to return all these parts." I muttered, and she shushed me, leaning back in. "What are you doing?"
"Replacing the epoxy in your scars. It melted off." she replied, smudging something with her thumb. "Lieutenant Kennedy wants to talk to you."
"I'll bet. Probably not happy I stuck around and fought." I muttered.
"Stop that." she replied sternly, waving the epoxy applicator in my face. "No more of that talk, remember? You taking a prisoner may have saved us. But moreover, she's worried sick for you."
"Why?" I asked stupidly, and Miriam looked at me with great exasperation. "... right, yes. I"ll go talk to her, once you're done. What happened with the prisoner?"
"Well, Milly was going to help translate, but that was no help, it doesn't want to talk and might not be able to. We've got it in the cuddlebug dungeon and we're stunning the damn thing every time it wakes up because otherwise it tries to kill us. Doesn't really seem to get self-preservation. But…"
"But?" I asked.
"It's got a bracelet on its arm like all the others, but this one is active. We figure they shut down if they die so their enemies can't use it, but this one… it's tabulator of some sort." she explained. "Milly was telling me earlier, though I couldn't follow it all. She's as much of a bookworm as her Miss, I swear."
I heard the door click behind me, and Miriam mutter "Speak of the devil…" as I peered out of the sleeping pit. Milly was walking through, with Kennedy and Sumner close behind.
"Dora! Are you alright?" she called.
"Hello Lieutenant. I was just getting my makeup done." I remarked, and she laughed, sitting at the edge of the pit. "I'm fine, I promise you. I'm not looking to die more than once here."
"You better not. You good to move?" she asked, and I sat up as best I could, sparks of pain playing through me.
"As good as I'll be, I suspect. I hear we have information?"
Sumner sat down as well, clearly buzzing with excitement, and unfolded a map between us. On it was a crudely rendered landmass I'd never seen before, but I soon realized it was a part of this world, identifying our city, the gate, the desert to the north and the mountain forest, several other urban areas and a squiggle of roads and train lines. And in the northern valley, not ten kilometers from the old fortress, a glowing blue icon.
"That's them, then?" I asked, tracing a path from the city up to it. A dotted line formed behind my finger, the label trailing it listing the distance, marking terrain and elevation, calculating how long it would take to march. "Their base?"
"That's the thought." Kennedy replied.
"Doctor Zsanett says our prisoner is a clone! Nearly genetically identical to the footsoldier sorts, a bit more complex. I guess it's like an officer." Sumner said. "But not, uh, not like us. It's still a genetically engineered war machine, not really a person."
"So like me." I replied, and Miriam grumbled from where she was putting away her epoxy. "Bad joke, sorry. So not really a chance of brokering peace?"
"Doesn't look like this. We're pretty sure these are… they're like an immune response to protect the gates, not a civilization. Whoever made them has left them unattended, dormant bases, and when something unexpected interacts with the gates it comes online and starts cloning soldiers." Kennedy explains. "That's my theory, anyway."
"Makes sense to me, and it explains why their numbers ramp up like that. And why the base is so far from the… oh."
"Oh?" Sumner asked.
"... that's why you need me to move. We need to go deal with this, don't we?" I asked. "Before they make more."
"As soon as possible." Kennedy replied. "We don't have time to finish the generator. We have to go now. Within the hour if we can. We were waiting on you and some of the other repaired machines to recharge, because we'll need everyone we can get."
I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet, stretching as best I could, shooting pains from damaged systems still rolling through me.
"What's the status of the generator?" I asked. "And what do the cuddlebugs know?"
"Most of the way done, just waiting on the cuddlebugs to finish smelting us the copper coils we need." she said. "I told the South Hunters. They tried to pledge us forces to help."
"You turned them down, of course?" I asked.
"Of course. They'll just get in the way." she replied, then sighed. "I just worry what will happen after. Especially if we take a lot of losses."
Cautiously, very carefully. I took her hand, and instantly she relaxed. I found myself wishing, in that moment, that the gesture had meant to me what it meant to her.
"That's for tomorrow. We have a planet to save."
"... ew." Sumner muttered, and I released her hand. Yeah. A little ew.
"A-ah. Well, I have to go get everything packed up. Collect your gear, I'll see you downstairs in a half an hour." Kennedy said, picking herself up. "You too, Lydia. And don't forget your shield, for heaven's sake."
The two of them shuffled out, and I fought off Miriam trying to polish my cheeks or somesuch thing and told her I was going to talk a quick walk to make sure everything was working for the march. Mostly, though, I just needed a moment alone with my thoughts.
There was clearly a panic in the cuddlebug estate, with important-looking officials and their servants moving this way and that, carrying stacks of paper and supplies, a buzz of constant activity. I found myself thinking it really was a little like an anthill, though I suppose that comparison was a bit unfair, prompted by their superficial similarity to the Earth insect. All of them gave me a wide berth, but I wasn't seeing fear on them anymore. Awe for a few, new ones I supposed, but they'd gotten used to us in our short stay here.
I climbed the stairs to the highest floor, the fourth, not really sure where I was going, and while I was sure the guards would have preferred I didn't carry through the doors they also clearly didn't have the heart to stop me. The floor here was just as beautifully minimalist as the rest of the palace, the same elegant and smooth marble, the same gaslamps, but everything was quieter, less busy, more reserved.
At the end of the hall was a small figure, talking with another, who threw a glance toward me, clearly startled. They were dressed in a long, flowing garment of white, and something about them looked so very different. Curious, I followed down the hall as they finished their conversation, releasing the hand of the person they were talking to, who fled back into their room, and they looked up at me with, eyes wide.
Everything about them was different. Rounder, softer, shorter, wider. Fewer pieces of hard carapace, eyes like a baby deer. I thought perhaps they bore some resemblance of the local cuddlebugs, in colouration and the shape of their heads, but I'd never seen a cuddlebug like them, and I couldn't help but want to know more.
"Hello." I said, leaning against the wall, trying to look casual. "I'm Dora. Who are you?"
They responded with a sound that had no meaning in my dictionary, and I asked what it meant, Wishing I had Sumner to help translate.
"It doesn't mean anything. It's just my name." they replied. "It was my -----'s name as well, and their ------'s. If it had a meaning, I don't know it."
Another blank, another missing word.
"I see." I said neutrally.
"You're one of the visitors from the stars." they said, not really a question, looking over me, and then they reached a hand out toward my face. I held very still as their claw touched my cheek, traced along it, to the intents where the epoxy hid my scar, around my eye. I'd never seen a cuddlebug voluntarily touch one of us yet, but this one did it unhesitatingly. "You really are made of metal."
"It's true. I'm a machine." I said, showing my flexing hand, the joints articulating, the new fingers gleaming. "I was made by very skilled artists in a city which hangs above a star called Procyon."
"Made?" they asked. "With tools, like a train?"
"That's right." I said, and they laughed, this little high-pitched squeaking noise. They gestured with a claw to the doors at the end of the hall, and I followed them out to a balcony that looked over the city, over the walls, the gleaming boulevard that led out into the dark wilderness beyond.
"That is so strange! You are not the same as the visitors which have everyone so scared, are you? The ones here to kill us all?"
"No, they are different. Here with destructive ends." I replied.
"And what are your ends? Why were you made, visitor?"
"To protect people." I explained. "That is why I exist. I'm very lucky to have a purpose like that."
"... that is also strange." they said, contemplating me, their hand touching mine. "I have a purpose as well, though I do not think of it as particularly lucky."
"You are a Queen?" I guessed, and they nodded.
"More than that. I am what keeps my family loyal." they said, leaning against the balcony. "I protect people too, I supposed."
"I'm afraid I don't follow." I said.
"Do you know about our history, visitor?" they asked, and I responded in the negative. "Before, every family lived only for their own queens, and we just fought constantly. There were some alliances, but they were fragile. When the Orange Empire came here, took my -------'s and held them, it stopped the fighting. That's my purpose. As long as I'm here, I protect them."
Everything about that rang hollow to my ears. Even if it was true, there was sorts of violence that wasn't war, violence that was clearly endemic here. Violence that machines like me weren't made to stop.
"Is that true?" I asked.
"I tell myself it is." they responded. "Because it's my purpose."
"I understand." I replied simply. I knew how that felt.
There was a part of me that wished in that moment I could simply take them, leap from this balcony, find their family. Upset the whole system at once. Bring it all down. But it wouldn't work: they had siblings that would be endangered, the system was too big for one mission queen to crush. I also tried to think of something brave and clever to say, to plant the seeds of a revolution, but there was nothing there either. They already knew their position better than I ever could, anything I could say would be trite, useless.
The best I could hope for was that if I could a way home, I could hold the door open long enough for my society to offer the material aid which could empower change. It was too big for me.
"Is there anything I can do to help you?" I asked finally, and they nodded.
"Nothing can change if we are dead." they replied. "Perhaps you can give us time, visitor."
---
We took every expedience we could north, aided by the locals. Their trains carried us half the way, packed in bare cargo cars, the wheels groaning with the weight of our metal bodies. The rest of the day's march carried us to the edge of the desert along their roads, the final leg done in the night. The ensigns road on the repulsor horses, clearly bone-tired by the end, the planet's rings above us giving the only illumination.
We brought everyone along, leaving only our fallen, with a warning that we had a full catalog of every part on them and we would know if they took anything. They would, of course, try to study them in our absence, they would be stupid not to, but if we won we ought to be back in time to prevent them from learning anything unfortuante. If we lost… if we lost it wouldn't matter either way.
We were accompanied by cuddlebug soldiers every step, locals and occupiers from the empire in equal measure at the trainyards, along the roads, everywhere. The news had raced ahead of us on telegraph lines, they all knew who we were and why we were here. Their grim faces and stark terror surrounded us at every turn.
It wasn't a burning horizon and black clouds of oil smoke choking the air, but it was very nearly as ominous.
We called a halt for the night at the edge of a great valley, along a windswept cliff, and I stood with Kennedy and the ensigns, with Beckham's spyglass in my hand, sweeping over the cliffs opposite.
"I had meant to ask. What did we do with our prisoner?" I asked.
"... I had it shot." Kennedy replied, her voice tensing up. "It was that, sacrifice three of our soldiers to watch it in our absence, bring it with us and potentially warn them through their network, or leave the cuddlebugs to try and contain it."
"I don't disagree." I said, and intellectually I didn't, even if it sent a shiver of disgust through me.
"If we survive this, the courts can decide." she said tersely. "There, I see it. 12 degrees, at the edge of the mountain. I count three stalkers moving in and out."
The narrow mouth of the cave resolved in my spyglass, the bodies of our alien foes picked out in black against the cool whites of the thermal sensor. The cave was tiny, perhaps fitting two of us abreast at the widest point, a crack in the cliffside. We wouldn't have spotted it without the movement of the alien creatures.
"I don't think we're going to be able to drop a shell in there." I pointed out, and Kennedy sighed, handing the glass to Sumner and kicking a rock from the edge of the cliff.
"No, it looks like there's a bend in the cave. We'll have to go set a charge manually if we want to destroy the base." she said. "I was afraid of that."
"We should use the last transmutative shell." I said firmly. "It's the only way to make sure."
"Yeah." she said, her voice breaking. "You're right."
"Can we do that?" Sumner asked.
"I'll rig a timed charge. We'll have to fight our way to the cave and get it inside." she said. "We'll cover you as best we can with the guns, Dora."
It would be incredibly risky. And transmutative charges were delicate, fail-safe. If it got shot, it would turn into a dud. If we left it and one of them cut into it, it would be defused. If we placed it wrong, set the timer wrong, it would all be for nothing. We would have to be very careful, very thorough. It had to go off, even if I had to carry it in myself and set it off with my own hand.
It was my fault we were here at all. If it came down to it, it ought to be me. Ought to. Ought.
"We'll get it done." I assured her. "We should sleep."
"Yeah." Kennedy said. "Ensigns, go. We're up at dawn. Dora, a word?"
The ensigns tramped off, yawning and exhausted, the long march battling their obvious anxiety. Kennedy stepped a little closer, her face a map of worry.
"Diana?" I asked.
"I'm sorry about everything." she said. "I… I really went out of line. But… I know you well enough to know I need to ask this. Please don't do anything stupid tomorrow."
"... Diana?" I asked, overwhelmed, unsure what she was saying.
"Don't… don't stay behind to make sure the bomb goes off, don't throw yourself into certain death. Be safe. You deserve to go home too." she said. "I don't care if it's the only way or whatever justification you come up with. We're both making it home, or neither of us are."
"... I can't promise that." I said, pulling the spyglass back to my eye, scanning their position again. "You know that."
"Dora… come on." she said, pleading. "Don't do this."
Very slowly, I lowered the glass.
"I'll try."
---
I awoke the next morning to the sound of cannon.
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bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
You know that's a nice twist on the whole hostage prince/princess narrative, sure they've spent plenty of time with the Orange Empire surrounding every but of their lives and they've probably lost a lot of context for how their people live back home, but they're not stupid and very much realize the sword of Damocles hanging over their head.
NotInventedHere
MSV, Desert Class
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Dammit Dora
just give her the D
(the D is for Dora)
I really love the little, like, underlying mechanical glimpses that we get from asides like this. All the deeper worldbuilding that just leaks through. It's fascinating.
Oooof. This whole section is just poignant and heartbreaking. Systemic change is vital, but incredibly difficult, and beyond any one person.
Dora. Dora *no*.
"Dora no".
"... Dora maybe."
dammit.
- Location
- Under your bed
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I love these funderful robots...they're trying SO HARD!
- Location
- Universitas Oxoniensis
Yay! And awww...hope Fusie comes out of this ok... 
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Ah, those darn safety standards. So sensible, and always so inconvenient.
Of course, artillery specialist and basically the only person who knows how these shells works, Diana will have to be present when the warhead gets activated.