You sweet summer children. At least there's a distinct possibility that we would win and possibly survive at the end of this shitshow. I've read and participated in things that offered no such guarantee. Or you know, possibility for that matter.
… okay, and now slightly less condescendingly, I don't think Gazetteer is particularly sadistic. After all, there's none of the 'special gear' in sight and her trash talking could use some work, too.
This is war, shit breaks, people die. The only thing I find surprising is that Kana's presence ( or absence ) on the battlefield actually somehow matters in the grand scheme of things, even if from a meta perspective.
The only thing I find surprising is that Kana's presence ( or absence ) on the battlefield actually somehow matters in the grand scheme of things, even if from a meta perspective.
It wasn't her family connections and trustworthiness that got her in a cockpit in the first place, so she she must actually have skills that while not exceptionally noteworthy, are rare enough to justify giving her one of the best mechs they could find for her, rather then an old hand-me-down.
It wasn't her family connections and trustworthiness that got her in a cockpit in the first place, so she she must actually have skills that while not exceptionally noteworthy, are rare enough to justify giving her one of the best mechs they could find for her, rather then an old hand-me-down.
As opposed to her being lucky enough, insane enough and halfway competent enough to become a mecha pilot and survive for a few years? Something tells me it's quite a feat in-universe.
A fighter pilot during the WW2 had one of the lowest life expectancies out of all military branches. Apparently, during some particular hot spots of the war their average life expectancy was in the range of four freaking weeks. And being a mecha pilot is a lot more dangerous, because you're fighting in a personal casket floating in open space.
What I mean is, you're saying that Kana is a pilot because she's competent, while I believe she's competent because she's a pilot and still alive. Her being a pirate for a few years and not dying automatically made her qualified, regardless of her actual skills. Or personality. Or ethics.
A lot of people died, but no one important… except for Jay 6 and Captain Andre. Wow, that's surprisingly few important dead people for two installments in the middle of total solar war.
The vote doesn't close for another seven hours or so, but I'd just like to draw attention to how close this vote is in the interests of avoiding bad feelings after it gets called. The bottom three options even all contain different combinations involving not letting a pilot die, which is eight votes again if they're looked at together.
Basically, if someone is unsatisfied with the way this vote is shaking out, this is probably the time to try and shift it.
Ah I'm so late on voting but there's still some time. Wow we are low on everything from pilots to options right now. Losing more pilots would be bad. We are already low on manpower, frames, and experience. Losing more pilots would hamper our already hampered ability to Do Things even further. Yet having the rebel alliance break down further does not spell good for the future of an independent Jupiter; the alliance is shaky already. Then we have the fact that we could be alienating our imperial allies yet again when they're both a reliable source of assistance and those characters still hold what's left of my heart after Petals of Titanium.
Since making hard choices is hard I think I will just throw my hopes and dreams into Agnieszka and Arianne making it out of this story alive
This is a joy. I love how voting is primarily focused on choosing what negative outcomes the vengeful cosmos doesn't deal you. Also props to the voters for inadvertantly giving Kana all the advantages she needed to deal with most of the hurtles thrown at her in this little Rebel Soiree months in advance. It's especially satisfying to watch her leverage her attempted suicide booming by melee hull cracker into a conversation asset. I frankly can't wait to see her rub her correct guess in bookers face.
Poor Sunny. Cast aside for the sake of teammate romance shenanigans after all his patience with his team of troublemakers.
I'm enjoying the Former SHE trio interactions. I was having trouble picking a favorite, but the Idea that the firefight outside is going to panic mari and distract her guards, leading to her launching and engaging whoever is attacking when they fire on her as a suspected hostile is too amusing a possibility.
It occurs to me that Kana's actions here and the fact that she recommended Naiya to booker might lead to a situation where she is made squad leader of a team containing a unintentional SHE traitor Mari and willing convert Naiya. I know it would take a mountain of coincidence but I just like thinking of Kana doing a team bonding session with the two.
There isn't a breakdown of relations with either of the other rebel groups: 11
No important allies were hurt: 10
You don't further alienate your Imperial allies: 8
None of the Esther Strova's pilots are lost: 4
None of the Esther Strova's pilots are lost, there isn't a breakdown of relations with either of the other rebel groups: 3
You don't further alienate your Imperial allies, none of the Esther Strova's pilots are lost: 2
RECRUIT So, what do you really wanna hear? No secrets here. You know where I came from!
SCREENING OFFICER: What kind of training did you receive at your previous outfit?
RECRUIT: Pfft, outfit? Nothing that fancy. It's not like station militias have much for that. I convinced someone to teach me how to pilot, and he did, and I'm pretty good at it. Do I get a new mecha?
SCREENING OFFICER: I'm concerned you're not taking this seriously.
RECRUIT: What's the point in taking it too seriously? You've got a job for me, I can do it well, and you know I can, otherwise why are we talking? It's like... we're out here risking our necks. We might die! So why act like we're already at a funeral? Life's too short — one minute you're here, and the next you're just... space junk. You never know when your luck runs out.
— Screening interview excerpt taken from secure AIJ database
Space
Ordinarily, Agnieszka lives for combat. No need to hold back or restrain her most natural impulses, no need to worry about explaining herself or disappointing anyone. Instead, she can kill as many people as she likes as long as they're enemies, and she'll even get praised for it afterward by Arianne. This goes out the airlock, of course, when Arianne is with her. Looking out at the battlefield, every red dot on the scan map is one more thing that could do harm to Agnieszka's charge — the worst of both worlds.
The AIJ at least has her Cerberus's signature in their system — despite her colours, they won't shoot at her, except by accident. The Divine Navy on the other hand, has just seen her launch from an enemy ship. They'll see her as a captured unit repurposed by the enemy, and will not hesitate to treat her accordingly.
Sure enough, just as soon as Agnieszka clears the mecha bay, she's taking fire from a Divine Navy Banner. It misjudges just how fast the Cerberus can accelerate. She hurtles through space like a homing missile, going up over the arc of fire from the enemy mecha. When she makes contact, Agnieszka unsheathes the Cerberus's monofilament talons, tearing through armour, cockpit, and pilot. First blood, that satisfaction of doing what she's best at — of the universe throwing everything it can at her the way it has all her life, and that not being enough to stop her from ripping its throat out in turn. That savage confirmation that she's not helpless anymore. And she can't even enjoy it while she's so busy worrying.
"Nieszka?" Arianne's voice asks in her head. She barely has any sensory awareness of her own body while plugged in to a computer system. Still, she will swear up and down that he can feel Arianne's arms around her from behind, in moments like these.
"I'm getting us back to the ship," Agnieszka promises. "Just hold on."
"Did the Divine Navy Follow us here?" Ari asks.
"I don't know," Agnieszka says. She rolls out of the way of a cutter stroke from her first victim's squadmate, before opening up on the Banner with both anti-mecha guns. The enemy mecha is shredded to pieces. "Does it matter?"
"Yes," Ari says, a frown in her voice. "If it's our fault, we have to help!"
"You could get hurt!" Agnieszka says.
"Please, Nieszka?" That just isn't fair. How is she supposed to say no to that?
"... Alright," Agnieszka says. "We'll help."
"I love you, Nieszka," Arianne says.
"I love you too," Agnieszka says, letting the words steel her. Then she answers the comm requests she's been getting from the long-distance shuttle they arrived in. The tone she uses is infinitely less soft and sentimental than the one she'd been using with Arianne. "Lieutenant-Commander," she says, "this is Dame Agnieszka. Are you in danger?"
"Well, we're in combat!" he says, sounding extremely harried. "We're staying in the shelter of this Imperial Guard vessel — they're keeping the worst of it off of us. Is the lady safe?
"Yes," Agnieszka lies. "She's ordered me to assist the rebels. Tell me if you're going to blow up."
"Y-yes, ma'am, I'll make sure to," he says. Agnieszka closes the connection, satisfied, and hurls herself into battle, moving her mecha through space as easily as she had moved her own body through the ship.
/////PoCS\\\\\
Onboard the HDMS Righteous Fire,
Divine Navy patrol ship
Captain Lastport understands now that he has bitten off more than he can chew. What he'd seen going into this was a few ragged, barely-armed rebel vessels, and what was surely the governor's youngest daughter ensnared in a bizarre kidnapping plot.
What he'd gotten was living proof of what his least favourite instructor had said back in the Academy: "You rush into situations before you understand them. One day, it won't just be your neck you're risking that way."
"The second mecha squad is nearly wiped out already, sir," the scans officer reports, looking a little pale.
"We're cut off! We can't retreat, sir!" the helmsman helpfully adds before Lastport can say anything to that.
"Damn it all," he mutters, tasting blood as he goes back to chewing the inside of his cheek raw. His three-ship patrol against five enemy vessels — and not all of the enemy pilots are flying those slap-dash buckets of bolts the rebels usually use. There's at least one real warship out there, of a design he's not familiar with, to say nothing about the high performance mechas that have already been sighted. It seems inconceivable that he'd began this assignment resenting the order to keep tabs on some noble brat, called it a waste of navy resources. Now he only wishes that he'd called for backup.
Boxed in and desperate they might be, they're at least not defenceless. They can black the enemy's eye, at least. "We'll focus on the warship," he says.
"Sir?" his first officer asks.
"Wherever they got that thing, it wasn't trivial to get ahold of," he says. "Just do it." He'll accomplish something with this debacle, at least.
/////PoCS\\\\\
Space, nearby
Azara Black lets out a ragged, half-hysterical laugh as she spirals out of death's reach. Something about dancing wildly along the line between living and dying always has that effect on her. As the enemy Banner swoops back in, Kitty's there, driving it back.
"What did I ever do without you?" Azara asks, through a grin. She almost waits for Kana to make the obvious quip, but Kana isn't here, so Azara hastily fills in her line: "Oh, that's right! I got my eye shot out."
"Try to focus, Black," Kitty says. "This is all too chaotic to relax."
Which is true enough. Azara misses Kana fiercely for more than just their mutual love of inappropriate humour amid the fury of combat. As great as Kitty is, Kana and Sunny were the ones that she trained with, fought with for the longest time. She hadn't realised how much of her own combat style was built around the rough edges of Kana's seat-of-her-pants, desperation fighting until she'd had to do without it. They definitely work best with someone more serious riding herd, but they lose something with just one or the other.
The mecha fight has turned into a general melee, the Imperial Guard taking the brunt of the enemy attention, leaving the enemy mechas jammed in between the Imperial Guard Halberdiers and the AIJ forces. This leaves them clear of the Garter Snake, which is good — it took more than a few hits in the early parts of the fight.
Near to where Kitty and Azara are fighting, Jay is engaging an entire squad of Banners on his own, his Hecate's swarm of laser emitters pinning them down so that strange mecha with the claws can take them apart. They're working almost eerily well together. Cam is nearby, providing support with her Lancer.
"I could really use some help over here!" a voice says over the general comm. Shae. She's cut off from their allies, pursued by two enemy Banners.
"We're moving to assist," Kitty says. "Hang on, Price." Shae can't exactly do anything else in her current circumstances. Azara follows behind her squad leader.
One of the enemy mecha chasing Shae turns around and fires on them as they approach. Azara is forced to go into a controlled spin to avoid the raking fire. Shae is being harrassed by both a standard Banner and, incongruously, a Heavy Banner — with the introduction of Azara and Kitty into the mix, AIJ pilots, it ceases to be a chase and becomes a general struggle.
The heavy opens up with its anti-ship cannon. Kitty manages to dart out of the way, but Azara is just a little bit too slow in hurling her unit clear of the lethal firing arc. Her Pennant is clipped, and she's knocked off course while alarms blare.
"Not again," Azara groans, head spinning, even as Kitty and Shae form up to defend her. "I'm fine, just rattled!" she says.
"Shit, she's not responding!" Jay's voice cuts in.
"Yes, I am," Azara says, blinking.
"Not you, he means Cam!" Kitty says.
Oh. Oh no. The rounds that had mostly missed Azara had, in the end, found a mark. The anti-ship fire has torn into the narrow frame of Cam's Lancer, leaving it drifting alone in space. It looks half-gutted, half crushed.
"Cam? Cam!" Jay's voice actually takes on a shade of real emotion, as preoccupied as he is with continuing his fight. Azara, Kitty, and Shae are similarly tied up. Azara nearly groans with relief as, finally, Cam's voice comes over the comm:
"... What? Where am..." she sounds bleary, dazed. It's hard to tell if she's fading in and out of consciousness, or if it's just her damaged comms equipment.
"Hang on, we're going to get you help," Jay tells her.
"I... I messed up bad, huh?" Cam manages.
"No, it was just bad luck," he says.
"Figures. Ryan's gonna... he'll be so mad."
"Are you hurt?" Jay asks.
Cam doesn't seem to hear him. "I said... I told him 'not a scratch' when he... when he lent it. Now his whole Lancer... his Lancer... the whole thing's, it's trashed. So... he'll be mad. Sorry." She sounds almost like she's falling asleep now. Azara feels her one eye burn, and blinks rapidly — the last thing she needs is zero-g tears in her helmet.
"Cam, are you there? Can you hear me?" Jay asks. There's a pause of two seconds that feel like two years.
"... Sorry," Cam says one last time... and then never again. The battle doesn't pause for her — it never does.
/////PoCS\\\\\
Onboard the AIJ Garter Snake
Whoever ever said that it's better to be sitting back on a ship watching a battle take place than it is to be in the thick of things can, to put it quite delicately, get fucked.
It's with an almost numb feeling of dread that you approach the hangar once the ship has come off lockdown. The fight is finally over, leaving the Garter Snake battered, but still operational. This is partially because the Imperial Guard took the worst of it — they accounted for at least one enemy ship going down on their own, but not without cost. You'd wonder how they're taking that, if you didn't have more pressing concerns at the moment.
You see the knot of pilots off to one side, out of the way of the technicians swarming all over the damaged mechas. You see Jay floating apart from the main group, stoically downing his medication. Azara and Kitty are here too, drifting close together. The others you can see are all from the Garter Snake.
You come in fast enough that you startle Kitty as you grab the handhold behind her. "Cam?" you ask, voice sharp.
"She's... still in the Lancer," Azara says, uncharacteristically subdued. You follow her gaze — Ryan's Lancer, which Cam had been piloting, is absolutely shot to shit. The rounds that had found their mark were heavy enough to half-mangle its light armour, leaving one of its limbs hanging on by little more than stubbornness. The head is simply gone entirely. And the cockpit, where you'd looked first but refused to fully register, is horribly staved in and breached in several places. The people who are working to pry it open aren't in a particular hurry, but they're certainly being grim about it.
Which means there's no one to save.
All you can think about now is her back on the station, going out of her way to offer to set you up with a new mecha for no other reason than she's a good teammate. "... Well, shit," you mutter. As if in answer, Azara lunges for you, giving you a tight, two-armed squeeze. You don't stop her, although you grunt with discomfort as Kitty swallows her pride and turns out into an impromptu group hug.
"It looked bad out there," you say, inanely.
"You're not allowed to break your leg from now on," Azara says, voice quavering. Kitty actually laughs at that, a startled, half-strangled sound.
"Well, I didn't do it on purpose," you mutter. Which you suppose is good enough for them, if not quite for your guilt. The three of you stay like that for several long minutes, and it's a mark of your rock bottom mood that you can stomach this much emotional vulnerability for this long before you start to get antsy.
You catch sight of Jay drifting off on his own, and you worm your way free. "It's... good you both made it," you tell them, words stiff and awkward. "I need a minute." Azara follows your gaze in some confusion, but doesn't stop you.
As you reminded yourself earlier, it's annoyingly difficult to catch a J-Subject when they're really moving in zero-g. He's not going so fast, though, instead keeping to the edge of the hangar and moving slow enough for safety. You somewhat exceed that. "Tham!" you hiss, grabbing the handhold in front of him, almost missing. Automatically, he reaches out a hand to steady you before you can bang your leg on a wall or something again.
"Kana," he says, as if he's not even that surprised by this interception. He doesn't let go of your shoulder, even though you're perfectly steady now.
"You alright?" you whisper. He and Cam were close.
Maybe he'd answer that question differently if it came from someone else. From you, what it gets is: "No. Find me later?" It's a genuine request, not just a dismissal.
"Right, sure," you say. "Where are you going now?"
"My sister," Jay says, nodding toward Agnieszka's mecha. She's floating there, looking exhausted, but not willing to budge from the spot. The reason for this is obviously that, beside her, looking calm and alert, is Arianne Grangier, currently talking to a higher ranking crowd than you actually want to deal with at the moment.
"I'll... just leave you to that for now, then?" you offer.
He nods, but adds, the faintest ghost of a plaintive note somewhere in his voice: "Later, though?"
"Yeah," you say, watching after him. "Later."
Article:
The precise fallout from this battle will be felt in the coming days and weeks following an early end to the conference, but several of the representatives are now more comfortable continuing negotiations in AIJ controlled territory.
Over that period of time, Kana will continue to recover, and her fellow pilots will deal with the aftermath of yet another loss. What relationships do you want to develop or highlight in the next update? In all events, there will be a scene alone with Jay and a scene addressing Cam's passing with the rest of the Esther Strova's crew, as well as news on Kana's replacement mecha.
Pick one from the following list:
[ ] Check back in with your three favourite prisoners
[ ] Bond with Lieutenant Amani North over the experience of watching people you love 'die' from the safety of a ship
[ ] Bond with Guard-Lieutenant Mosi North over mutual recent losses
Pick two from the following list (results counted separately):
[ ] Fresh off of your painkillers, you get completely wasted with Kitty and Azara
[ ] You and Jay keep an eye on Arianne and Agnieszka, which makes Arianne thrilled
[ ] Have an awkward talk about family with Ryan and Shae Price
[ ] You go see how Nazaret's doing, they introduce you to someone unexpected
[ ] You finally manage to get Commander Milo Owusu to open up about something personal
Excellent chapter! We haven't quite seen the fallout with the imperials, so I want to show up bonds there, and I think Mosi likes us more. That, and I'm curious about this heiress.
[X] Bond with Guard-Lieutenant Mosi North over mutual recent losses
[X] You and Jay keep an eye on Arianne and Agnieszka, which makes Arianne thrilled
[X] You go see how Nazaret's doing, they introduce you to someone unexpected
Been a while, and what a perfect way to make for its return with a nice quick character death T.T (the one I was hoping didn't die died)
[X] Bond with Guard-Lieutenant Mosi North over mutual recent losses
[X] Fresh off of your painkillers, you get completely wasted with Kitty and Azara
[X] You and Jay keep an eye on Arianne and Agnieszka, which makes Arianne thrilled
I'm going with Mosi over Amani this time, just because it feels weird for Kana to bond with Amani over that
Been a while since we've been with Kitty and Azara so why not
