CLASSIFIED // HOLOCAUST-FOXFIRE / PAPERCLIP / WORLDBREAKER-ECLIPSE / BLACKBOOK-INFINITE / WORLDBREAKER-SUNSTORM / INFINITE DESIRE// HORIZON-BLACK
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"Never forget you are the walls of steel and iron, between Mankind and a thousand horrors too unspeakable to name. You are the very walls of Hell."
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Wardroom, TSAB Patrol Cruiser Tabris, 200 parsecs out of Val Verde, Dimensional Sea layer Yogh Ȝ
Falcon watch 01 June 0065
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Tida Lanster
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Early on my fourteenth day of my new deployment, I entered the wardroom with Teana's latest letter streaming.
As I joined the queue Lieutenant Veyron was as usual grumbling about the asymmetric tree pattern of tables. I casually wonder once more if he's addicted to the vanilla and lavender scent the environmental systems emit to try to calm him down. It can't have escaped him that the fleet medical department insists on each ship having their own semi-random pattern to give the crew a symbolic break from the general regulation of our lives on board.
Once again, the wailing siren calling the ship to general quarters interrupted my breakfast as I was reaching for a cinnamon roll to go with my chiffir. This time I had the presence of mind to drop two into my storage volume as I rose to head towards the door. Phantom Mirage threw a 15% mask across my vision with a map showing the route to the meeting room attached to the Captain's office.
A quick jog later and the door slid open.
At the end of the long hexagonal table, Captain Stradale's red, garnet beaded, braids cascaded down across the shoulders of her storm coat.
I circled to the left carefully past the seats left free to accommodate Sarika's tail.
As I sat halfway down the table, across from me the Caledfwlch Techniques observer gave me a piercing golden look from beneath the spiky bangs of her violet hair. In the month she had been aboard she hadn't shown much more emotion than an armour plate and her green and white flight jacket and light blue bodyglove marked Miss Scarlet as an outsider to the community onboard the ship. Her corporate masters hadn't felt the need to put a silk glove over the battle steel of their pet Combat Cyborg.
Between us and the Captain were the watch-standers and her secretary. To my left Lieutenant Tipo, the navigator, nervously fiddled with her pinion feathers and beyond her Lieutenant Levante, the scryer, was leaning back in her chair concentrating on breathing slowly and deeply. To the captain's right hand, Lieutenant Commander Kato had the glittering eyes of someone watching a video feed.
To Miss Scarlet's right Father Felix, the chaplain, looked almost as out of place as she did in his gold embroidered black robes and swept-back leather court cap. In front of him, above half a doughnut, his compass floated gimballed in a sphere of mana loops, its rings glittering. On his right between him and Leading Hand Karif, the Captain's secretary, was an empty chair for Engineering.
To my right, my side of the table was empty, with the Bosun, Chief Petty Officer Carrera, ensconced at the foot of the table. CPO Opel, the Chief of Rig, Doctor den Ithoka and the Arachne supply officer Lieutenant Spiano filled the other side, surrounding a swiftly depleting plate of pastries.
I had time to start my first roll when the shadows by the drinks cabinet bloomed and Fan Liuha, the junior engineer, stepped out of a black cocoon and took the last chair as the shadows returned to their normal shape.
"Commander Sebring is bringing the engines to maximum military and sent me to sit in." Fan reported, a yellow mana array sweeping the spots of lubricant gel from her orange-brown fur and blue uniform.
After a moment's thought, I split my second roll and offered it across the table to a smile and a wink from Liuha and a confused glance followed by a nod of thanks from Miss Scarlet.
At this Lieutenant Zarooq, the signals officer, flowed through the door with Vey giving her careful distance and as she was coiling her tail up in the space to my right, the Captain began the meeting.
"12 minutes ago, Site Casa on UW-9476 sent an emergency signal, analysis of the end of the signal includes multiple frames showing WR-01."
"The Blazing Sword Princess", breathed Fan, her ears flattening to her skull.
"Signum, yes." the Captain replied. "We are closest and have diverted, which means we have 30 minutes till we drop the mage team."
"By then she''ll be gone."
Trio interjected, her voice tightly controlled. "Unless she's going for a double tap"
"As yah may have noticed, we've above average turbulence, thanks ta the Garden o' Time." Lieutenant Levant drawled, sarcasm deepening her husky Novak accent, "There be a shank through tha pass in the local shell, an we be out in the wilds e'en if we do have triangulation from Val Verde, Asura heading to OW-97 and Calypso out by da Razgriz Cascade, so Tipo can no run us faster tha' half standard."
"Do we have a threat profile for this Signum?" Sarika asked rising up on her tail to get a clearer look at everyone as the environmental systems tinted the air with the scents of cinnamon and mint, "I'm missing context here I think."
"Legendary terror who slaughters armies and destroys planets." Veyron commented unhelpfully from where he was slouching in the corner as far as possible from the Captain.
Thanks to mother's idea of suitable bedtime stories I could do better than that, "Phantom Mirage, play combat data recording Hestia escape pod bay ASD starting sixty seconds before ship destruction."
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Patrol Cruiser Hestia, Aft Starboard Dorsal Escape Pod Launch Facility
Dragon watch 20 May 0055
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Combat Data Log: Chief Petty Officer Mio Lanster/Phantom Mirage
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The writhing assimilator tendrils spread down the corridor walls and met the dozens of amber slivers of Mio's [Cross Fire Shoot]. Crew streamed past the petty officer as she calmly walked backwards, her timed rate salvoes of plasma bolts slashing out like a metronome, from the golden mana rings arrayed in a phalanx around Phantom Mirage's barrel.
A partially overgrown hatch was outlined in red fire and one of the environmental techs burst through. Leading hand Zain den Aguara like the supply clerk, Marrisa if Mio remembered correctly, that he was carrying had the orange and white fur of a huli-jing.
As he passed Mio the tendrils flattened themselves to the sides of the corridor as if repelled by the purple light surrounding the tall figure in partial armour striding down the main access corridor.
[Sturmwinde]'s plasma wave met the packet attacks of the latest [Crossfire Shoot] in an orgy of mutual annihilation.
Behind her to the far right, the dull thud of detonating impeller coils signalled the launch of one of the four remaining escape pods.
The violet triangle of [Panzerschild] intercepted [Stinger Spike]'s homing projectiles as a pair of scarlet plasma chakram, Zain's [Sun Fire Wheels], shot past Mio and jinked to hit the Wolkenritter's defences from the sides. Under the cover of the explosions Mio's eyes flashed orange as she used [Tactical Unity] to fill Zain in on the fraction of a plan she had, She'd just have to trust that the Knight of the Lake was concentrating elsewhere and that the Knight of Lightning hadn't returned from her three hundred year disappearance, since both were known to be able to tracelessly intercept telepathic communication.
Antimatter charged plasma bolts from Mio's [Crossfire Shoot: AMS] fell on the remorselessly advancing figure like raindrops, without so much as slowing her, the Book's tendrils wilting in the stark actinic glare as they flared from matter to energy.
[Skyfang] slashed out in return, steadily eroding Mio's [Mulit-Defensor] as each glowing crescent smashed two or three of the defensive disks before dissipating.
With a pair of krumping sounds two more escape pods launched. From behind her framed in the hatch of the last escape pod, she could see herself through Zain's eyes bringing her weapon up, bayonet alight, in a mirror to the knight's salute her opponent was giving her.
<Disengage inertial anchor>, Mio ordered as she rolled Phantom Mirage through a block in sixte diverting a purple lined fleche down and outward. The amethyst triangle of Signum's [Panzerschild] burst to life again as Mio lined up a centre body mass shot and unleashed [Phantom Blazer].
The orange coherent gravity beam burst and splintered on the defensive ward tearing at the sullenly glowing deck and ceiling without straining the Belkan's defences but on her side of the pyrotechnics Mio, her recoil damping disabled, was slammed backwards by her improvised gravity rocket, throwing her through the entrance of the last escape pod.
![The Maelstrom Vortex Affair [MGLN EU]](/data/threadmark-index-icons/l/75/75583.jpg?1715274384){kind=icon}
), and Fan and Devendra do wear boots but Heroforge has its limitations and being digitigrade is one of those.
