Awkward Introductions (FT, IC, Closed)

by **Senkaku** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 9:17 am

Awkward Introductions, Chapter One: Perla

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
Eptli
Pontorson-sur-Ciel

A motor scooter's engine sputtered and switched off, the noise muffled by soft, warm, humid air in a place where no air at all should have naturally been. The scooter hovered calmly over the superconducting pavement as its driver dismounted and began making his way down the sidewalk.

Coronel yawned as he glanced up through the hab tent, slowly strolling down the now largely-empty streets of Pontorson-sur-Ciel's main hab tent. It was early in the artificial day-night cycle, here behind the vast shadow of the gas giant JinShan, and Heliosito, the uulchi ministar that orbited their little moon, was still just a dim splotch in the dark sky. The sunlet, even at full blast, was weaker even than the light of Tianhu Prime, two AU away- Heliosito's fusion cores had been old before Coronel was born. But the sunlet was still adequate for Pontorson-sur-Ciel's needs, and had been for the hundreds of years since the Quadruple Alliance had presented it as a gift to the settlement's founders.
He yawned again, wishing he were back in bed.

The miniature sycamores that lined the town's boulevards rustled in an artificial breeze as Coronel continued down the street. Through the transparent membrane of the hab tent, beside the slowly growing luminescence of Heliosito, there were the tiny colored blips of ships and shuttles, waiting in orbit for permission to land and guidance telemetry.
Coronel yawned again as he meandered up the steps to the door of his building. Like many in the settlement, it was made of the pinkish-gold silicate stone that formed most of Eptli's mass, and even in the dim light it shone with the same peculiar beauty that had inspired settlers to first come to this seemingly harsh and most distinctly unappealing of moons. The doors swung silently open before him as his japasoft used his proximity chip to chatter away with the AIs in the building, providing entry codes and identification.

As usual, the building was empty. The comforting click-whir of hard drives, whirring away in darkness, and the gentle hum of the lights switching on was all that greeted him, as they had for sixteen years. Coronel winced a little as he pushed open the flimsy composite door to his office- his back was twinging again, since he'd forgotten his nano-injection the night before.
As had happened every day of the week, at the beginning of his morning shift, for sixteen years, his computer buzzed happily at him.
"Good morning."
"Mornin'," he replied, plopping down in his chair. "What's new?"
"Five large vessels are currently in parking orbit, as well as a yacht and two small vehicles, requesting authorization to land. All have presented authentication and sent down cargo manifests, and there are open hangars waiting for them. Three vessels departed on schedule, one small passenger vehicle departed 35 minutes behind schedule because of a late passenger. Six vessels entered the system, one of the three vessels that departed the port headed to the Outer Belt on a merchant circuit. All six will arrive later today, four of them during your shift, during which time three launch pads will be freed up-"
"Query, clarify: three hangars cleared during my shift, or three hangars cleared throughout the day?"
"Three hangars will be cleared throughout the day. Additionally-"
"Display data for all vehicles seeking landing telemetry."
The computer immediately threw up a hologram for him, overly pixelated thanks to their cheap, older equipment. Coronel began flicking through it, but it seemed the computer was not yet finished.
"Additionally, sensor st-"
"Computer, silent." Coronel frowned as he waved his hand to flick through the hologram, which jumped unsteadily. Damnit. Someone let the cores get too warm, he thought in irritation as the lag continued.
"Computer, display the specifics for the yacht in orbit requesting landing telemetry."
The hologram jumped again.

The uulchi ship was shaped like a teardrop, with four fusion torches mounted on the fat end and bulging up from the eerily pearlescent skin that seemed to shine just a little brighter than it ought to in the near-total darkness of JinShan's shadow. It was registered as a private yacht from Lifen-di, but anyone could see the vessel was not intended for humans. Even the most basic spectrometry sensors could detect its interior was filled with water, its hull almost completely unshielded, and, of course, it had the trademark of every uulchi ship from the frontier to Irkhaes: the same peculiar hull material, looking as if it were made out of hammered, shaped mother-of-pearl.

The arrival of an uulchi ship, Coronel mused, would prove interesting indeed, whatever it was here for.
His computer was trying to say something again. "Additionally, sensor stations have detected the arrival of several unidentified objects, presumed to be ships, which are now travelling coreward."
"Cross-reference unidentified objects with known vessels, classified within the Milky Way."
The computer was quiet for a moment.
"No matches with known vessels. Unidentified objects remain well outside of our control zone, but are on a vector to enter it in several hours at their present velocity."
"Alright." Coronel tapped the hologram a few times to set himself a reminder about the objects for later. Probably either Shan sneaking around or something following that yacht from Irkhaes. "Grant permission to the yacht to land as well."
[hr]

by **The Nuclear Fist** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 6:46 pm

Khrenalac, Ozlukar Occupied Space
Hell Bones tribal territory

The afternoon sun hanged high in the sky, its oppressive rays beating down and baking the barren ground and the flesh of those who unlucky enough not to be shielded from it. Krenalac was, much like most other Ozlukar worlds, nearly dead; more a wasteland than anything else. Divided up amongst seventeen tribes, the small frontier world saw some level of excitement from day to day, the tribes squabbling over the planet as they did.

Today, though, was different. In Urkhem, the Hell Bones 'capital', if such a word could be used to describe a few hundred ramshackle buildings cobbled together from clay and scrap, men piled into Urkhem's main building, where her chieftain took up residence and held court from time to time. The Hell Bones Chieftain, a hulking brute who took the warrior's name Dozer Colossus, had summoned all those he could to organize the summer raids. The raids were important to their race, who blooded themselves in combat to earn holy favor, and brought home precious loot and treasure.

Amongst their number was Churghalog Onkaggak, son of Onkag. His eyes squinted against the sunlight as he looked up at the tribal fortress, built out of ancient ruins and added onto with heavy stone slabs and thick blocks of steel, it was easily the most impressive thing on Khrenalac. Perhaps that is why the Lord Colossus was its hegemon, the man matching its size and grandiosity, its commanding presence amongst countless peers. Churghalog forced himself to contain his excitement as he filed in.

It had been a long time since he had last been there, last seen the Colossus. His father had been chieftain of the Oshtaraq tribe, one of the many under the Hell Bones' sway. When he was a boy, his father had scorned the old beliefs, and taken up the creed of the Fuelgod Church on Ozun. Churghalog was sent to the Church to be educated and raised in the light of the church, taught to read and communicate, taught about the cosmos beyond Ozlukar space. But most importantly, he was taught about the Golden Master, his god. When his father had finally died, he had come home to rule.

The tribals took their seats around their respective tables, amongst their respective circles, in the cavernous feasting hall. Churghalog himself took as near a seat to his overlord's throne as possible, though he earned the occasional nasty glare and minor shove for doing so. He had expected as much, the Faith was not popular amongst the heathens of Khrenalac, and he had not yet earned his warrior name. He had trained, sure, but had never experienced combat. To the men of Khrenalac, he was as anomoly. And the Ozlukar did not like anomolies.

Finally, after what seemed an eon, the ground felt as if it began to tremble. The doors the led to the chieftain's private chambers opened, and swaggering warriors, decked in armor and wielding guns as massive and gruesome as he had ever seen, stepped out. But even they paled in comparison to the hulking Lord Colossus. He stood head and shoulders above even the tallest of the summoned Ozlukar, wider than two together and likely weighing as much as a small vehicle. He wore no armor on this day, instead clothed in trousers and tunic, though ones that appeared quite ornate compared to Churghalog's own.

The Dozer's flesh was a gnarled patchwork of scars and cybernetics, trophies from a lifetime of battles. The uppermost of skull cavity had been replaced wholesale with gleaming metal, and the half of his face under bore the mutilating burns of plasma fire. Truly, the Dozer Colossus was not a handsome man, though he more than made up for it in the terror he instilled in others. He ate with the assembled until the sun hung low in the sky. Finally, as the merriment began to die down and an air of eagerness began to settle in, he spoke of the raids.

"I understand that the long lost son of Onkag has returned to us," he said in a voice like a stone breaking. He did not say from where Churghalog had returned, though he had not needed to. It was well known where he had been, where all his line's firstborn went. The crowd grew icy and jeering. So the friars were right, then. He thought. The Faith remained ever unpopular.

"Did the Church teach you well, boy?" He asked, his voice bearing no hint of emotion.

"Aye, m'lord. Th-" He began, though he was interrupted by a mass of jeering laughter and boos. Churghalog fumed, though he did his best not to show as much. That would only make this hazing worse.

"Good, good. I'm sure the proper way to apply burn incense and recite hymns will help you lead your people. Perhaps your god will grace you in battle." He grunted.

"Do you wish for your people to join in the raids?" The Colossus asked.

"Of course, m'lord," began Churghalog, though in truth he lacked the bloodlust his brethren here did. "I want to bring glory to my tribe, and wealth, and earn a warrior's name."

The chieftain looked a bit surprised at that, and his face worked itself into a bemused smile. "You are a man, as far as I can see. You are tall enough to be one, broad enough to be one. Yet you bare no scars, have no true name. You're soft, unblooded." He said so nonchalantly, as if he was merely telling Churghalog that the sky was yellow or the stars were bright.

"These are the ways of the Church, making men soft and complacent. Taking the sword from our hands so that we can hold their books instead." He boomed, and the crowd murmured in agreement. Cries of "cowards" and "boy fuckers" rang out.

"M'lord please, if you'd only give me a chance. I am trained to fight, trained to pilot a ship. I can be as strong as anyone here. I am loyal, Lord Colossus, I'll do anything you want to prove it." Churghalog begged.

This piqued the lord's interest. "Anything, you say? Very well then, your people will be allowed to join the raids. Pick your best men and ships, I will give you a small frontier, lightly defended world to blood yourself upon. It belongs to the uulchi, a strange, eldritch folk."

"Thank you, m'lord! You won't reg-" Churghalog said, though once more he was interrupted.

"You will not be going alone, however. I won't throw away men and ships, especially when I cannot yet trust you, boy. I will be sending along with you a guardian and two ships, under my most trusted friend. Faithful Karkharek, will you ride together with this one?"

The one called Karkharek rose. He looked older than the Lord Colossus, and approaching something near portliness. The man's skin was the familiar swampy green-yellow of their race, eyes beady and sunken, the few clumps of hair upon his head were iron grey and withered, hanging limply.

"Aye, m'lord. I'll stand with 'im. I know the world, I raided near there once in my youth. Ain't much around there, should keep the poor boy from pissin' hisself too bad."

"Then it's settled," the Dozer Colossus said loudly, lifting a goblet in appreciation of things. "You will raid the uulchi world. Take all you wish, burn what you do not. As you are yet to be trusted, you will give me one third of what you take as tribute. Then you can be trusted. Do you think this is fair?"

"Aye, m'lord." Churghalog said. The rest of the night went along similarly, the tribal chieftains coming before the Lord Colossus and pledging loyalty, and receiving their raid targets and tribute orders accordingly. Those who were more favored received better raiding grounds, and those less so received worse ones. Churghalog, along with Faithful Karkharek, were among the first to file out.

"Ya don't need to worry about that lot," Faithful said. They were in your boots once, too."

Churghalog merely grunted in response, unwilling to chat. He felt as if his personal honor had been slighted in there, never once had he been treated as so insignificant in the Church. His mind focused on what he would need to do, how he would need to prove himself. To earn himself a name. Over the next few days he prepared his longships, whilst Faithful prepared his own. All in all, between the two of them, they had a few thousand men in between twelve ships. This would not be a battle that would be sung about through all time, but hopefully it would be enough to earn respect.

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
Eptli
Pontorson-sur-Ciel

The ships arrived in the system after many days of travel, and it was as they approached that the warriors on board began to don their armor and man their stations. In theory, Churghalog would be in charge of this raid, though none doubted it would be Faithful who took the reigns in reality. They planned on seizing whatever was flying in system or otherwise neutralizing it, and then ordering the planet to surrender totally. Usually that worked, but if it didn't they'd rake the surface with a few volleys of gunfire and then make landing. It wouldn't be too difficult, this was a small planet with a tiny population and no defense force.

Churghalog prayed silently as he donned his armor, kneeling. He was not on the command bridge, he didn't feel the need to be. The ship's navigators would lead them there, and by his order Faithful would come and get him when they were ready to begin the attack. Or so he thought, until the mass sound of gunfire rocked the whole of the vessel. Hastily finishing up, the young chieftain grabbed the rest of his gear and ran to the bridge, where he found Faithful already in command.

"What in all the hells are you doing?" Churghalog screamed, livid.

"Leadin' the attack, since you were so busy." He grunted, paying more attention to the flickering monitor in front of him. The crew chuckled to themselves. Fuming, Churghalog looked down at the monitor, and eleven blips spreading out and either sizing or destroying everything in orbit or flight, with his own longship staying in the rear.

"My god, you're just fucking slaughtering them!" The young chieftain cried.

"No, we're just snatchin' up the ones who can't run off, and blowin' up the ones who can. On these raids you wanna keep anything from getting out o' the system if you can. Makes it hard for 'em to communicate, so by the time somebody important hears what's goin' on and sends a fleet, we're already good and gone."

"And what about that one?" Churghalog asked, pointing a finger at one of the blips that seemed to be slowly making its exit.

"Already scanned it, 'cause it looked fancy. Ain't nothin' in there 'cept water 'n squishy things we can't take as slaves. I'm just gonna have the crew target her and blast her with the main cannon."

"Absolutely fucking not!" Churghalog ordered. "This is my ship, my fleet, my raid. You will not fucking tell me what will and won't happen. Lock on the ship and bring her in close, we're boarding. That's an order." He bellowed, voice shaking in anger.

"That so? Aye, captain." Faithful said, passing along the order to the navigators. The ship fired up its sublight drives and kept a bead on the strange mother-of-pearl ship. Down below deck men formed up boarding parties and entered into the armored pods they'd fire out of the main cannon when they came close. As long as nothing went wrong, Churghalog would lead them aboard and capture the whole thing. It would make a fine present to the Lord Colossus.

by **Senkaku** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 10:56 pm

Awkward Introductions, Chapter Two: Right Hand of the Deep Lord

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
USV Right Hand of the Deep Lord

Pontorson-sur-Ciel's sensors had finally recognized the Ozlukar ships as raiding vessels around fifteen minutes before their arrival- and, thanks to an unfortunate script error in one of the sensor monitor's subroutines, failed to alert any of the vessels in orbit. The best they got was a brief, unencrypted radio burst from ground control one hundred and fourteen seconds before the Ozlukar came into weapons range. This was not terribly helpful- these ships, save for one, were either bulky, slow, unarmed freighters or defenseless little pinnaces and light craft. Some chose to wait, hoping they would be boarded and perhaps by some miracle spared from the raiders. Others tried to run, and died for their foolishness as Ozlukar cannon shredded their vessels' sides and vented their atmosphere into the freezing dark. One freighter captain, in a defiant but idiotic gesture, managed to reprogram an anti-meteor laser to fire at one of the longships before his lumbering vessel was split from stem to stern by a cannon round.

On the surface, two light railgun emplacements that had not been used in a century came to life.
One of them promptly had a transformer explode, melting one the power input to the rails and incinerating the motor used to rotate the turret. It communicated its failure to the settlement and shut down again.

The other, rather pointlessly, began slinging ferrous iron slugs the size of eighteen-wheeler trucks at the targets that Pontorson-sur-Ciel's port control had detected (it had only relayed the data for eight of the Ozlukar ships), one every five seconds, for one minute, before running out of available ammunition. The railgun was not particularly powerful, the slugs travelling at a mere 0.01 of lightspeed without any guidance or maneuvering capabilities whatsoever. It was a futile gesture by a settlement with no real defenses besides obscurity and the personal weapons of its citizens.

The Right Hand of the Deep Lord, the uulchi yacht that had been waiting in parking orbit, was not much better off than the rest of the ships around it or the settlement below it. It had neither powerful weapons nor powerful engines, and this little yacht had no soldiers aboard it. Even if it had, no one on board seriously could have taken on a grown Ozlukar- uulchi were fragile invertebrates, not much more than a meter long. Taking on one of the alien raiders would have been utter folly, and trying to fight against their warships equally foolish.
Isenak 64 Yikec'h waved his tentacles, flashing riotous crimson and blue, as he looked at the screen in front of him.
"Overseer, the barbarian vessel is closing on us and..." he gulped, black flickering on his skin. "...cameras indicate their cannon is swinging around."
"Thank you, Sensor Operator," the Ship Overseer said. Despite the situation, Chamnak 77 Xilik was a nondescript shade of brown and orange, faint diamond patterns moving in waves across his mantle. "Systems Operator, seal our inner bulkheads."
64 Yikec'h glanced over at the Systems Operator. She was flaring red and green, but not very brightly- then again, this wasn't her first voyage off of Irkhaes! 64 Yikec'h looked back at his screen.
"Overseer, the barbarian vessel is drawing closer."
"I believe that they will attempt to board us." 77 Xilik swam over next to 64 Yikec'h, extending a tentacle to point at the cannon. "If they intended to destroy us, they would have fired already, with one of their killing shells. This is what they have also done to the other freighters we passed- fire a 'dud'. It will likely bounce off the hull, but if it grips, we will still be alright. Do not worry, Isenak," he said, jabbing 64 Yikec'h with a tentacle lightly. "You will have a story to tell your clique and creche-mates back on Irkhaes, I am sure."
64 Yikec'h let himself float upwards a little, pushing his eyes forward to focus on the Overseer and slowing the rapid opening and closing of his gills. "Thank you, Overseer," he said, trying not to charge frequencies too harshly. The Overseer squished his eyes back, waving his tentacles and swimming back to his resting place in the middle of the room.
64 Yikec'h jetted a slight distance, turning brilliant blue and black and spreading his tentacles in an involuntary defensive pose as he positively shrieked, "Barbarian cannon has actually fired!"
The Overseer himself now flared blue stripes as he spoke to the AIs listening in the walls. "Proceed with anti-missile evasive action and deploy countermeasures!"
The room shook, a change in acceleration forcing all of them to swim towards the side of the room to avoid being pulled 'down'. Outside, flares brighter than the fieriest blue giants leaped from the ship's perfectly smooth surface, spinning like insects dosed with LSD and jetting off into space. The great pearly teardrop jinked once, twice- and the boarding pod slammed squarely into its flank.

The pearly seraphite hull met the metal of the boarding pod at extremely high speed. It did not break, merely flexing, increasing water pressure in the compartment under it and rupturing the sealed bulkheads in that section of the ship.
The pod's metal crumpled, the seraphite snapped back into place, and the primitive boarding vehicle was flung off into space as the yacht promptly jinked again and fired another volley of flares and chaff.

77 Xilik expelled some bubbles from his beak in amusement as 64 Yikec'h settled back down, his gills pumping furiously.
"As I said, Isenak. We are fine." He swam over again and tapped the screen a few times with an extended manipulator tentacle. It switched to show Eptli, the bright carcasses of ships drifting like dead flies in orbit. "They, however, are not. And they are our responsibility. So begin sending a message to Irkhaes. Pontorson-sur-Ciel is in distress." He flashed orange and blue diamonds, lashing his tentacles slightly and fading to shifting, rippling green. "Now, Sensor Operator. This is not a small matter. Systems Operator, since I can only presume that ship will not simply leave us alone, prepare for a gimelspace jump as soon as possible."

Within five minutes, after a few more high-speed maneuvers, the ghostly mother-of-pearl ship vanished in a cloud of light and began winging its way back to the glittering, glorious homeworld of the Quadruple Alliance.

by **The Nuclear Fist** » Mon Nov 23, 2015 3:36 pm

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit

Churghalog gripped his harness tight, grinding his teeth and silently praying to his god that they would be alright. He had never before traveled so far from home, and had never even been on a raid, let alone a boarding party. So as he poured the faintly glowing kak into the tank of his power armor, and rumbled the engine to life, he silently breathed in the thick smog and said a silent prayer. He and Faithful had gathered up the twenty best of the party's warriors, given each a suit of similar power armor, as well as their personal weapons. Churghalog himself gripped a sonic blaster, which was a crude energy weapon that fired concentrated, hyper dense bursts of sonic energy. It could blast open doors and small vehicles, and turn a man to jelly in his own power armor. He took comfort in its power, though it was a cold comfort.

Faithful stayed back on the command ship, it was important for at least one of the party's commanders to remain on deck, and the grizzled raider had told Churghalog in no uncertain terms that their warriors would not respect someone unwilling to do battle themselves. The young Ozlukar tried to maintain focus on anything else, forcing himself not to tremble as they were loaded into the ship's titanic main gun, and he forced a scream back down into his gullet as the pod was fired. What came out sounded like a low rumble, and the others took it as the beginning of a rallying cry. They erupted into a cacophony of roars and chants, beating their armored chests and waiving weapons over their heads. And when the pod struck the uulchi ship, at just the right angle to glance off, they erupted into an even greater cheer that threatened to split open poor Churghalog's ears.

That is, until they realized they had not moved through the ship, and felt as their pod swirled and drifted in the vacuum. Churghalog hurriedly clicked on his radio set, establishing a static filled link with the command deck.

"Did we. . . did we go through the whole thing?" He asked?

"Ah, 'fraid not. Must not have hit the thing right, your lot glanced right off." Faithful responded, stifling a laugh, even as crew in the background could be heard snickering.

"Just bring us in!" Churghalog said, crestfallen.

"Aye".

The command ship brought in the boarding pod half an hour later, and to the young chieftain's surprise had found they'd used the tractor beam in the meantime to pull in several giant, iron blocks. Faithful had told him the planet had fired them in the general direction of the fleet, though they weren't aimed at anything in particular and were too slow to pose a threat. Churghalog rankled at that, though he supposed it meant something that Faithful hadn't assumed total control, and used them up already. Thus began a brief discussion on what to do with them, with Faithful and his ilk wanting to take them as part of the loot, and Churghalog and his (admittedly small) supporters disagreeing. The young raider began to chafe in between the increasingly more precarious demands of what was meant to be a relatively simple and straightforward raid.

"We're not fucking taking metal blocks with us as part of the loot, and that's final," snarled Churghalog.

"That so, boy?" Faithful mocked, eliciting a cheer from his own supporters. "I certainly fucking think we are. They're big trophies to take, and the Lord Colossus will mightily appreciate extra metal. Good, clean iron at that, good for making steel. Steel makes weapons, armor, parts and ships." Retorted his counterpart.

"I am the chieftain here, I am the one in charge, and I say we throw them back into that fucking planet!" He snapped, jabbing a finger into Faithful's chest. The other's bemused grin morphed into a tight lipped snarl, and he locked eyes with Churghalog. He was larger than the young chieftain, more experienced, and much heavier to boot. But he was also older, far passed his prime. Churghalog was lean for his race, and fit, and taller, and had himself received training from the temple guard in his youth. He stared down his portly counterpart, and bared his teeth. Much to his surprise, it was Faithful who backed down.

"Fine, you whoreson." He grumbled. "Turn broadside and cast the slugs off! Aim 'em for the perimeter of planet side's big colony, we want 'em shitting their pants, not smashing things." He barked. The crew began respectively, and carried their orders to the other ships in the fleet accordingly. For the moment, the leadership crisis had ended. The railgun's slugs pummeled the surface, with the raiding party following in their wake. What little defenses the habitat had were sufficiently obliterated, and the settlement's soft underbelly left exposed for the Ozlukar to exploit.

Those brave enough to attempt to resist the invaders, or just catch a glimpse, would see a horde of yellow-green skinned, dirty warriors in ramshackle armored vehicles, roaring and swinging weapons over their heads. Anyone who raised a hand or a weapon was taken as a threat, and received for their trouble a hailstorm of metal slugs from the Ozlukar's primitive weapons. They had come a long way for this, crammed in ships nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, but they were there. And already they could tell there was much loot to be had.

by **Senkaku** » Tue Nov 24, 2015 4:06 pm

Awkward Introductions, Chapter Three: Into Darkness

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
Eptli
Pontorson-sur-Ciel

Nathan Xiang could hear nothing but his own heartbeat as his little skimmer zipped across Eptli's beautiful, stark pink-gold surface, its antigravity field kicking up regolith dust behind him. In the other seat were most of his earthly possessions, at least the ones he had with him. The warning had gone out ten minutes ago, over the settlement's net- a raider squadron was attacking, or something along those lines. He was sure that even now emergency transmissions were winging their way across the system and the whole cluster, but that would hardly save any of them unless a Shan battlegroup happened to be lurking somewhere nearby.
Some people- mostly the very old- were staying in their homes. They were free to get themselves killed, or worse carried off into slavery, but he was not going to throw away the rest of his life just for a shitty apartment he had no real attachment to. Most of the settlement's inhabitants had had the good sense to scatter, heading to the hundreds of tiny habitats and little garden-domes that dotted Eptli's surface. He could only assume the matter transference relays had been shut down- but Nathan Xiang was not fond of gambling with his life or other people's. It would be better to go by skimmer, to somewhere not on the network, and wait for whatever was going to happen next.

Ahead was the ridgeline he was looking for, distant Tianhu peeking through the sharp, spearlike crags that turned the bladelike ridge into a row of razor teeth. His GPS showed the little blue dot getting closer to its destination, and he breathed a slight sigh of relief.
There was a small flash in the sky, and his GPS went dark.
"Son of a bitch." He braked the skimmer, slowly easing it between two of the crags at the top of the ridge, and turned around, trying to look for the last solar field he'd passed.

As his eyes caught the distant glint of the acres of indigo PV cells, there was suddenly a flash on the horizon so brilliant that his screen went almost completely white. Nathan turned his head away, lifting up his hand to shield himself from the glare. It faded slowly as the cameras on the skimmer's hull adjusted, revealing a huge, molten ejecta column rising into Eptli's thin wisp of an atmosphere.
There was another flash, then another, and then a whole series in short succession, flaring all across the horizon. One particularly bright one, a bit closer, left the solar field a smoldering crater.
They're dropping some kinda rock on us, he thought with a jolt of fear. But just seeing where the plumes had gone up, none had actually hit any of Pontorson-sur-Ciel's main hab tents.

Little lights started splitting off of the distant ships that glinted in orbit, and Nathan swallowed, increasing his altitude and spinning around once more. The skimmer zipped over the ridge before Nathan swiftly brought it back down nearly to the surface and began slowly going in a wide arc towards the northern end of the crags.
"Computer, try to connect to the Pontorson Net."
"No connection."
Nathan was about to swear in frustration when a green gleam caught his eye. He gunned the skimmer's engine, and sure enough, it came into view- one of the many little hidden oases that Eptli's first settlers had scattered all over the surface. Nathan had been told about this particular one by one of his friends (who, unbeknownst to him, was now a rapidly dissipating superheated gas cloud near one of the impact sites) when they'd gone drinking one night. Chiyoda had been out doing maintenance work on power lines to some of the solar farms in the region when his GPS had broken and he'd gotten stuck for an hour and a half in the random, faceless ridges, craters, and plains that speckled all of Eptli's surface. He'd found this particular habitat dome- and some time later he'd even taken Nathan and some of their other friends out to see it.

The sleek black skimmer eased up to the airlock, connecting automatically as Nathan fumbled with the controls. There was a loud hiss as motors whirred into gear, attitude jets pulsing, and the door clicked open. It took a light tap to fold inward, and he started to climb out- then paused for a moment to grab his pistol.

Coronel had been sitting in his family's old garden-dome for half an hour now, watching in horror and morbid fascination on the dome's little telescope array as the raiders grabbed their pathetic railgun projectiles and slung them back at the surface, creating huge explosions all around the settlement. He had a connection to the net- and what he was seeing wasn't pretty. The Ozlukar were hulking yellow-green creatures with all the grace of a bull in a china shop and the dumb ferocity of wild dogs. Those who had stayed behind in the settlement were being mowed down by their primitive but extremely effective kinetic weapons, and the aliens were smashing into houses and apartments to pilfer valuables.
Thank God most people left, Coronel thought as he watched one of the aliens blast a locked door inward with a grenade. Hopefully they will just take their loot and go. Pontorson-sur-Ciel was a prosperous settlement, trading with the uulchi and the Shan, and the town had, years ago, had a sizable diamond mine that many families still had jewels from. Most people had only taken the essentials or family heirlooms- after all, you could replace just about anything. There would be Irkhaes pearls, gleaming diamonds, fine clothes, robots and computers, toys and trinkets, art of all varieties, some weapons- just about everything imaginable had accumulated in some quantity here, either in the town or in the warehouses of the spaceport (though one of the four had been largely vaporized by the returning railgun slugs).
Coronel turned the screen off with a sigh. Don't torment yourself by watching this. He stood up, stretching his arms and taking in the beauty of the little tropical garden.

The airlock gave a hiss-click, and Coronel turned around to gape in astonishment as a figure, shadowed by some of the banana plants around the entry, climbed through. He fumbled for the plasma stunner he'd kept on his belt since leaving the settlement, crouching down behind a rock and listening closely.
Nathan pushed through the screen of banana plants, heading out into the garden's central space. It was quite lovely- a few small ponds, mostly covered in lily pads, with a few frogs and turtles and some bright-colored fish. Tropical trees and some banana plants scattered the rest of the garden, shading the short grass from the bright lights mounted on the frames of the roof, and a few small birds sat in them and chirped away or hunted dragonflies.
There was a loud crack, and Nathan saw a brilliant streak of blue, like lightning, flash in front of him. He dove back towards the banana plants, his mind kicking into panic mode. Nathan Xiang was not a soldier or a particularly hardened criminal, and he was certainly not used to being shot at.
Coronel muttered a curse under his breath as he missed. He'd never had reason to practice his marksmanship since he had moved inwards to Pontorson-sur-Ciel from his boyhood home at the very edge of the cluster, and now he might be about to pay for it. The figure- it was hard to really see him, since he was standing at an odd confluence of light and shadow from the roof lights and the banana plants- dove back towards the airlock. Coronel sent a few more shots towards the plants.

More lightning bolts crackled around Nathan, scorching through the broad leaves of the banana plants and singing their pseudostems. Is someone already in here, and they just forgot to lock the door? Where else are you supposed to go? Just head out there to die?

You have a pistol, genius. He hefted the light composite handgun, training it on the general direction of the plasma bolts as a figure rose from behind a rock in the middle of the grass. Now that he looked, there was a data slate laying on the grass as well, on a blanket with some little containers of snacks.
The gun barked once, jerking back with surprising force. Nathan had never actually fired it before, and his bullet was well of its mark, causing one of the little plastic containers to explode violently. The man dropped, and more plasma flashed, kicking up dirt.
Nathan fired again, and the plasma bolts stopped.

He slowly rose from the now-scorched row of banana plants, creeping out towards the grassy meadow and the rock. There was not even a hint of movement. Nathan edged closer- nothing. He could now see a streak of sharp, shocking crimson leaking out onto the blanket.
Oh my God, did I just fucking kill someone?

Meanwhile, by now the Ozlukar would have come to a certain large house at the edge of town, near the edge of the main habitat tent where light forest crept up the wall of the crater the tent was built in. This house was extremely luxurious, belonging to a merchant associated with an uulchi trading group- a terrace and swimming pool, an expensive miniature theater, rooms full of comfortable furniture and expensive screens and computers, a trio of fancy sports cars in the garage, and all manner of valuables and nice art.
As they ransacked this lovely goldenstone house, it would become apparent one of the rooms in the basement was locked. The door to this room, right across from the miniature theater with its sound system and screens and also near a room that happened to be full of (probably smuggled) cash and jewelry (especially pearls), was made of solid steel, reinforced with titanium. The lock clearly required a physical key, which was nowhere to be found.

When the Ozlukar finally cracked the room and the lights began to switch on, what awaited them was truly astounding. The room was the size of a gymnasium, with another entrance at the other end leading into a huge tunnel that ran out to an abandoned launch pad three miles outside the settlement, tucked behind a hill (which happened to have a very expensive shuttle docked). But it was what was within the room that was stunning.
In the middle of the dull concrete floor, there was a pearl. The pearl was the size of a small house, glittering with an incredible fire, the same strange gleam that had shimmered off the skin of the uulchi ship. Around it were cases and cases full of smaller, normal pearls, but none could match the enormous gem that shone so alluringly and towered above them. That the merchant had clearly been involved in smuggling uulchi pearls from Irkhaes was hardly relevant and extremely obvious- but she had handed the Ozlukar a fortune beyond counting in her haste to escape.

And, perhaps, a curse of sorts.

Huañak Cluster
Teknak Sector
Erlak System
Irkhaes Orbit
White Kraken Station

Word had come swiftly enough to Irkhaes, though it would be many, many hours until the Right Hand of the Deep Lord would return to the ancestral world of the uulchi. Their gimelspace signals had preceded them, however, and now the Barbarian Affairs Office was hurriedly inquiring with Supreme Command to try and find some free assets of sufficient strength to dislodge a raider flotilla, which was hardly an easy affair. Most uulchi military units of that strength were either busy guarding the World School's frontiers or built into satellites and immobile battlestations to defend Irkhaes and other colonies.
One sufficiently powerful force that was not occupied happened to be docked at White Kraken Station. The Silver Star was a large vessel by any standards, around eight hundred meters in length, and while not exactly beautiful, it was highly functional. Around its oblong nose was a cone of water ice, to shield from energy weapons, and all along its length were missile pods and laser emplacements. Within, the water that sustained its small crew was heated by the same fusion reactor that drove it powerful motors, and a heavy payload of combat drones and additional missiles and weapons filled much of the available space. The ship's seraphite-graphene skin served quite well both as armor and simply to keep the eternally hungry vacuum at bay, and gleamed with a golden sheen in Erlak's brilliant light.

Attitude jets flared, and the Silver Star began pulling away from White Kraken Station, heading away from Irkhaes as it prepared for a gimelspace jump that left nothing behind but a blossom of photons.

It would be a long time before she arrived, though.

by **The Nuclear Fist** » Sun Nov 29, 2015 4:27 pm

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
Eptli
Pontorson-sur-Ciel

Churghalog strode into the planet's main settlement atop his vehicle, a leg propped up and chain ax in his hand. He imagined at that moment less an opportunistic raider, and more a conqueror. An epic hero in the tales of old he'd heard as a child. His marauders swaggered into town alongside, their jangling, ramshackle vehicles kicking up clouds of dust and spewing thick smog. It had largely been a peaceful affair, most everyone had fled, and those who hadn't were in no shape to resist. Still, there had been a brave few. They had paid dearly for their bravery, being killed and made an example of by cackling Ozlukar brutes, either having the meat torn from their bones and or ripped to viscera and strung up.

Already the settlement was thick with the smoke of burning buildings and the anguished cries of endless rapes and killings. Though Faithful had, at first, tried to instill some manner of discipline in the ranks, Churghalog had no such inclination. He considered it a reward for following him, backing him against who he had begun to see as his rival. Slowly, he was winning the ranks over to his side, robbing Faithful of his popularity. Gone was his old piety, the young warlord had given himself over to the excess of the slaughter, felt the rush of conquest burning through his veins like kak. He'd personally put the ax to tenfold of the captured, asserting his dominance through violence and reveling in it. Blood glistened on his rust flaked armor, splashed across his helmet and into the strands of his patchy, half dead hair.

He supposed that, to the humans of this settlement, the Ozlukar were an ugly and brutish race. They stood head and shoulders above humanity, weighing as much as any two of them, and with mottled, rubbery skin of yellow and green. With heavy, sloping brows and and blocky, jutting jaws, combined with beady eyes and a small, almost flat snout, he supposed they were very brutish indeed to the lesser beings of this world. It made Churghalog laugh, how they doubtlessly failed to recognize the superiority of their conquerors. He supposed that, as he tore a strip of flesh from a screaming human's back, staring down at the assembled crowd of the captured with frenzied eyes and blood on his maw, the Ozlukar were little more than demons to them. That made him smile.

Finally, after many hours, the revelry began to die down. Churghalog had found something like a large hall in the center of the settlement, doubtless where it was governed before the raid. It was a suitable place to make camp, with his warriors raising their banners over it, erecting crude totems around it to signify the clans that took part. The warlord himself had found an old, ornate throne carved from marble that he had taken for himself, presiding over a an increasingly large horde of treasure his war parties continuously brought to him. The flood of loot began to slow throughout the day and into the night, and as the sun began to rise the next day, all the war parties had returned, with little more than a few bits of gold and fresh slaves between them. It worried Churghalog, a third of this wouldn't impress the Lord Colossus, it certainly wouldn't redeem him. His heavy brow furrowed as he considered his options.

He pointed a meaty finger at Faithful, summoning the elder raider. "Why so few prisoners? I was led to believe this world had a much larger population." He asked.

"A lot of 'em fled this place when they figured we were coming, a lot more died when you threw those slugs back at 'em. Best I can figure is that the ones that survived are probably trying to wait us out." Faithful explained.

Churghalog nodded to himself. "Get four or five hundred of the men and send out scouting parties on our fastest cycles. I want these fucking places mapped out, looted, and razed. Let everyone on this fucking planet know that if they try to run, they'll die. Slow."

Faithful's face tightened into a grimace, though he merely nodded at the command. "Aye." He said, turning on his heel and heading out. Churghalog grinned, he had asserted himself as the dominant force in he raiding party, making Faithful his subordinate, his lesser. The grizzled, old raider was smarting from that. Good. He thought, that would keep him on his toes. His train of thought was broken, though, as one of the war parties sauntered in, carrying chests and sacks overflowing with jewelry, money, and seemingly every conceivable bauble under the sun. Their leader came forward, his misshapen face a mass of barely constrained excitement.

"We found something in one of the palaces here, m'lord!" He squawked, fists trembling.

"Aye, I can tell. Good on you, I'll see you all get a bigger share when we start dividing the loot." Churghalog responded, giddy.

"No, m'lord, this is trash compared to what we found. See, we found a vault in one of a palace here, a palace made all out of gold. A big, big one. Took us a while to crack it open, too. Had to bring the battle wagon in, and hit it with our main guns. But inside was something special, m'lord. The vault had a lot of loot in it, lots of pearls and gold, and even a fancy ship we lashed to the back of the wagon and dragged back. But you should have seen the big thing, m'lord. A pearl bigger than any wagon, bigger than a house even. Too big for us to move ourselves. So we came back with what we could carry, figured that we'd get you, m'lord." The leader explained.

Churghalog leapt down from his perch, eyes wide and practically salivating. "Get the biggest hauler we got, boys!" He shouted. The peace of the makeshift throne room was shattered as the marauders took off, only the unlucky few being hastily chosen to stay and guard the loot and prisoners. It was a short drive, tearing through the smoldering rubble of the settlement in a breakneck convoy. Finally they reached the golden palace, or rather what was left of it. Warriors were hard at work stripping down the massive blocks, each one worth a fortune. This raid was rapidly turning into something magical for the party, and Churghalog especially. But nothing could compare to the pearl itself. Its beauty seared itself into his eyes, as all at once he felt his heart seize with joy and his trousers tighten with excitement. He did not even need to command his men, already they began to push the thing onto the back of the hauler, crudely chaining it in place.

Before long they were off again, parading their new found treasure through the wrecked streets of the settlement. Those few captured prisoners not yet brought to the camp looked on, agape and in despair. It filled Churghalog with joy, and he let out a mighty roar as he beat his chest in celebration. Finally, they brought the thing into camp, straining to roll it and secure it with the piles of treasure already captured. But Churghalog's joy began to sour as he saw the ever continuing look of horror on the grimy, bloodied faces of the prisoners. As if he had robbed them of their souls, and not their riches. He summoned forth one of his scribes, the trained folk who piloted ships and could often communicate with some of the galaxy's races, and motioned for the scribe to bring him one of the prisoners.

The human was put on their knees, not that they could move very well under the weight of heavy chains. Churghalog fixed his gaze on the human, though he spoke to the scribe. "Ask this one what the pearl is." He ordered. The scribe did as he was told.

by **Senkaku** » Sun Nov 29, 2015 6:12 pm

Awkward Introductions, Chapter Four: Penglai

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
Eptli
Pontorson-sur-Ciel

Yimin Chapelle had lived a long and exciting life- as a young man on Huasé-di, climbing the dizzying heights of the ladder of bureaucracy, then retreating to his writing, then to science, then to his travels. He had made a family for himself- ten children, now flung across the Cluster and the Galaxy, by two wives. He had grandchildren, who he was able to see with moderate regularity despite the isolation of the place he'd chosen to move to in the twilight days of his life as nanobots battled tumors all through the great expanses of his 136-year-old body and spun protein circuits and titanium-composite fittings to replace his failing biological machinery. His heart was sustained now by a spiderlike device, made of spun diamond and fiber-optics, drawing power from a tiny, shielded plutonium core embedded in it. This device pumped away, keeping the worn-out muscles and valves alive, if unmoving. Fleets of molecular submarines patrolled his body to battle the tumors that had broken off of his liver some years ago and still tried to propagate within him, and tiny cranes and construction teams stood by to re-surface worn-out myelin and spin artificial neurons to maintain the crumbling recesses of his mind. He had experienced, in a rich life, almost all there was to experience, even war.
He had never experienced this, however- and, at his age, why not try something new? He had no obligations- his dead wives would not miss him, and his children were safe, off with their own families and their own lives. And so, after composing a few quick messages and firing them off into the ether, and thoroughly hiding the items he truly treasured, Yimin had allowed himself to be taken by the strange and violent barbarians. If needed, he could probably be rebooted- he'd once met a Chilapa and had himself turned into a bodhisoft, now stored somewhere on Lifen-di.

But being taken by raiders would be an experience he certainly could not get anywhere else, he thought with dark amusement. The aliens were certainly vicious, it was true- but Yimin was, with all his internal modifications, quite capable of enduring pain and physical discomfort. And despite his sun-spotted, wrinkled skin, Yimin was also still quite strong- to speak nothing of his mental acuity.
The aliens had assembled their tribute and slaves in the town square, before the council hall, and the one Yimin assumed was their leader had dragged out the old Speaker's chair to sit on.
The aliens left, excited, in a hurry. A few guards stayed behind, watching over the captives, and Yimin yawned as he thought about what they could be doing. Eh, who cares. Just soak it all in. It was hardly pleasant, watching the community Yimin so loved being ransacked, but at least he was secure in the knowledge that those who had stayed had chosen to do so. Pontorson-sur-Ciel would be scarred by their brutality, but once they left the settlement would certainly recover.

The aliens began returning, and Yimin gaped.
The pearl was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He had never understood gold fever or its uulchi counterpart, nacre fever- but looking on the huge mass of glittering seraphite, he felt a shiver of desire course through his body. The aliens evidently felt the same- the one who had been sitting on the marble seat earlier now roared triumphantly, but Yimin was coming down from his initial heady rush of envy.
Was Miera really daring to dip into super-pearls? She must have been particularly discreet... and lucky. At least now it's someone else's problem.

I doubt bringing this thing outside was a good idea.
One of the aliens kicked him in the back, knocking him forward onto his knees and making his chains rattle.
"What is this pearl-thing?", one of the aliens growled at him.
Yimin gave him a contemptuous look. "A fortune worth more than you and your commander's worthless hides and all your ships. For the money you've lost putting those scratches on it with your chains you could have bought this entire town and everything in it. For the money you will get from selling it, you could buy a small planet, a war fleet... whatever your heart desires. Since you are a barbarian, I presume your desires will be nothing of vision or substance, but that is your tragedy, not mine."
And, he thought to himself, also a bull's-eye for the Order of Unrestricted Night. But you would be deserving of their wrath, I think.

Nathan had stopped hyperventilating enough to clean up after himself. Muttering apologies to the nameless man he'd shot, he dumped him into one of the habitat dome's ponds, where he could be consumed by the little fish and other creatures that lived in it and vanish. He managed to explore the dome a little bit too, confiscating the useful possessions he found and setting up the little cot that was folded up in a side compartment. He brought his things in, too- this little dome was isolated and hidden away, far from Pontorson-sur-Ciel, and its nanodiamond panels and titanium plate would be difficult for any alien to puncture. It was like many of Eptli's little gardens- a hard, tucked-away warm spot in a sea of cold, barren rock carved into labyrinthine canyons and ridges. Some of these gardens were even hidden underground, drilled into the little moon's rocky sides.
With the matter transference lines all shut down, and most people having the good sense to stay well hidden and away from the largest gardens out in the open, the Ozlukar were going to have a hard time indeed finding anyone.

Particularly because, hidden in Eptli's frigid plains and mountains, there were more than a few unpleasant surprises- one of which Nathan was discovering now, as he switched on the bio-dome's main console.
The bio-dome was mined- and out here, where the moon's original settlers had had to make a hard and often fierce living, a nuclear mine sitting underneath a hidden garden was hardly surprising. Other oases had lasers, cannon, minefields, droids- all manner of personal defenses that had been lacking in Pontorson, but that had never been decommissioned out in the moon's rosy expanses.

In Pontorson-sur-Ciel, meanwhile, problems were beginning to manifest themselves. The settlement's structures had been torched by the rampaging Ozlukar, trees and lawns and buildings set ablaze, but the smoke simply had nowhere to go. It billowed up, and spread out along the habitation tent's roof, raining fine particulates and ash back down as combustion rapidly consumed the oxygen from the settlement's atmosphere. The air began growing difficult to breath as the oxygenators worked at maximum and the particulate filters whirred, but the smoke was pouring into the environment faster than they had ever been rated for.
There was a solid chance, Yimin thought as he blinked due to the increasing haze, that they could all simply suffocate here, before the atmosphere filters could catch up.
Especially if someone gets the bright idea to break something to spite our charming guests.

by **The Nuclear Fist** » Sun Mar 20, 2016 5:57 am

The bespectacled scribe, his face a mass of misshapen scar tissue and crude cybernetic implants, slackened in surprise at the balls this man-thing had to not only insult him and his tribe, but to do it so contemptuously. He quickly regained his composure and communicated the human's explanation to Churghalog, who stroked his heavy jaw, intrigued by the soft skin's words. Enough to buy a whole world, or even a war fleet. Churghalog thought, a childlike giddiness welling up in his innards. Still, the scribe had communicated to him that this old human had insulted him, and while the young chieftain was normally willing to abide such petulance, doing so in front of his wary tribe-mates would, even if ever so slightly, undermine his authority.

Quickly, he fixed his a cruel grimace onto his face, and let a roar erupt from deep in his chest.

"Many of you have skeptical about this world since the beginning." He shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear. There were uncomfortable murmurs from the group. "You don't have to lie, I was as skeptical as you. We were all wondering if it was even worth it! This is just a piss poor frontier world, after all! A dirty little hovel in the ass end of nowhere! After the Lord Colossus gets his cut, we'd be lucky to have enough treasure to cover the costs of getting here!" Those murmurs began to grow louder, the dirty barbarians finding themselves agreeing with their lord.

"But look at that big rock!" Churghalog said, pointing at the super pearl. "That is a gift from the gods of war and plunder, boys! We give that to the Lord Colossus, and we get to keep all the treasure for ourselves!" The tribals erupted into a cacophony of cheers and chest beating, taken over by jubilation at the news that the raid was already paying off. There had been no deaths, and now they were liable to all be rich. Their fears about the unblooded church boy that was their chieftain were lessening with every moment of good fortune. Churghalog could feel that in them, and it alone fueled him.

"But wait brothers! This little man-thing didn't stop at that!" He roared, his voice changing from joy to sneering anger. The crowd itself fell back into a low murmur.

"That's right, it didn't stop at that! It said we were barbarians, that we weren't civilized. That we're not good enough to raid weak little soft skin planets!" The chieftain asked. The Ozlukar warriors answered in kind, whipped into a violent frenzy of war chants and wails, beating their chests and waving weapons in the air. Few things were as severe an insult to the Ozlukar as a perceived challenge to their power and strength.

"Should I let that slide?" He asked, and the crowed responded with calls for blood, and every obscenity and appeal to depravity and torture under the sun. A wicked grin slithered across his face, as he reeled a meaty fist back, and brought it crashing down into the human's face. The elderly human crumpled into the ground, a ruined mess but alive. The scribe grabbed it roughly, bringing it back to its knees and gripping its head tight, so that it couldn't squirm.

"But that's not all, boys!" Churghalog shouted. "You know what they say about a man-thing that can take a punch from one of these." He said, patting the muscles on his arm. "They'll be a good slave!" Wicked laughter erupted as Churghalog was handed a brand, a warrior quickly touching it with the flame of his torch. When the brand glowed red the chieftain brought it ever so closely to the human's face, and slowly pressed it against its forehead. He relished in the sound of flesh burning, the small streams of smoke coming up. When he pulled the brand away the mark was there, seared black with the skin around it an angry red. The symbol itself was a glyph representing his tribe, with a crude crown over it representing Churghalog's royal line. This signified that the human was now a slave of the chieftain, rather than of an individual member of the tribe.

Churghalog spun his new slave and grabbed it by the back of its head, lifting it high into the air for everyone to see. As his people laughed and pointed, he tore the thing's pants down, and had the brand reheated. Twice more he put his brand on the slave, once in the middle of its back and once on the buttocks, before roughly dropping it back onto the ground and having the scribe put a heavy, spiked collar on its neck, with a myriad of jingling bells fixed to it. Perhaps less than creatively, the human was christened 'Jingles'.

With the revelry out of the way, Churghalog attached Jingles' slave chain to the arm of his new throne, and sat down. The chieftain summoned a few members of Faithful's crew, who had not left with their master.

"Take a ship and load it up with the pearl, and take it back to Khrenalac as a gift to the Dozer." The warriors complained about not receiving their share of the bounty, but did as they were told when Churghalog assured them that he'd get them their cuts. The warriors left to carry out their task, leaving Churghalog to quietly contemplate all that had happened that day. It left him smiling. He took a goblet and filled it with grog, drinking deep from it. The night would be long, he would watch the fires burn.

Faithful gripped the wheel tightly as his kart screamed over the barren plains, four other such karts staggered out in a squad in his chosen sector. A few hours previously, that kid Churghalog, the smug little bastard, had ordered him to to survey the wilderness outside the settlement in order to track down hidden settlements for looting, and to bring back as many escaped locals as they could. For that unenviable task, he'd been given a laughably small number of warriors, though he suspected that had been the point. The boy had sent him out on a fool's errand, knowing he'd be out for at least a day or two, thus allowing him to safely erode Faithful's grip on the men. By the time he and his crew came back, he'd be damn near vilified.

For the task he had twenty or so squads, each made up of five or so karts, with a fliers up in the sky to get a better view. It worked well that way, the high fliers could see most things, and send the karts that way to investigate and mark them down. They could also, in a pinch, provide some air support in the event whatever they found wanted to fight. Not that it was likely, Faithful had a hard time much would survive out in this place, as it was just too barren and empty, and too far away from anything nearby. Still, he'd seen people eke out a living in stranger places back home, so he did not rule it out completely.

The radio buzzed, breaking Faithful from his train of thought.

"Boss, there's something glinting down there in a rock formation, looks like an oasis or something. Might want to check it out."

Faithful clicked the button on the receiver and responded. "Can do, high flier. Circle around and wait for my orders."

The old captain quickly woke the half-dozing warrior in the seat next to him, and snapped at his fellow warriors in the back. Quickly they awoke, donning their helmets and gripping their weapons. Faithful had his lieutenant take his position as he climbed into the back, scaling up and popping the top hatch of the kart, pushing his torso up into the compartment above. Said compartment was the "crow's nest", an armored cage complete with a light cannon. Faithful removed the spyglass from his pocket and brought it out, leveling it at the glint in the rock formation ahead. He smiled to himself as the outline of a complex came into view.

Quickly he lowered his head back into the bed of the kart, and barked orders for the entire squad of vehicles to make for that direction. He had a sneaking suspicious there were people hiding out in there, trying to weather the Ozlukar storm. He would show them no quarter, no mercy. They were quarry to him, to be taken as slaves or killed, their homes ransacked and slighted. They would descend on the complex soon, and all its hidden treasures would be theirs.

by **Senkaku** » Sun Mar 20, 2016 9:30 pm

Awkward Introductions, Chapter Five: Frozen Fire

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
Eptli
Pontorson-sur-Ciel

Yimin looked around in bemusement as the aliens began speaking and shouting and roaring in their guttural, harsh language, saying things he couldn't understand. He didn't bother to hide the contempt on his face as he surveyed the ugly, hulking brutes, particularly the ugly fellow who'd spoken to him in broken Wirrai dialect. It was quite peculiar, seeing one of these greenish monsters with their scarred faces trying to pull off glasses- crude spectacles, large and ugly, that flashed in the light of the flames.
He noticed the alien leader smile and suddenly pull his arm back. It took a moment for him to put together what was about to happen, but when he did, Yimin wondered if perhaps he should've been more polite. Ah well. You have a bodhisoft somewhere.

The punch connected, breaking his nose and fracturing his right cheekbone and sending him flying. After a brief explosion of pain and white light, Yimin's brain turned out the lights, and the old man went limp and unconscious.

He woke up some time later, manacled and chained to the Speaker's chair, his head throbbing. His implants were doing their best to minimize his discomfort and heal the trauma of Churghalog's blow, and as he came to he noticed his back and ass hurt as well, and there was a bright region of pain on his forehead. Burns? He couldn't breath through his nose, which was clogged with blood, and he could feel dried blood along his face, while weird spots swam across the right side of his vision.
He awkwardly shifted, looking down at his lower body in the chains. Charming. No clothing, and they branded me or something. Probably why your forehead hurts, too. Yimin coughed, noticing a smoky scent in the air, and looked around. Fires were still burning across the town, and the alien who'd punched him was sitting in the chair, drinking, even as smoke began to pile up near the hab tent's ceiling, obscuring the sky.

The old man fidgeted and shifted up to a seated position, leaning against the side of the chair as nanofactories inside him marshaled vast fleets to begin repairs. He looked around for the alien who wore glasses, the one who could speak, albeit with a strong accent, a civilized tongue, but could not find him.
I suppose I shall just sit here, then.

Some ways away, Ségolène Telitsyn smirked as she finally managed to get a good grip on the bundle of wires behind the plate she'd just smashed to bits. She was underground, in the main tent's life support systems, where water was recycled, air was scrubbed, and computers carefully monitored temperature, humidity, air quality- anything and everything that could compromise the health of the town's people. Obviously, there was little it could do against heavily armed and extremely unpleasant invaders save for lock down, and nearly all the staff had left, scattering off to oases out among Eptli's rugged mountains and canyons and craters.
Ségolène, however, had decided to stay. The entrances to the life support machinery complex were not actually particularly easy to find for those who had no notion of where they were, nor would aliens intent on plunder have much reason to search for them or stumble upon them. They were fairly secure as well, and she would have plenty of warning time even if the area was breached. Meanwhile, she could snack on food still in the office fridges or use some of the protein-sugar assemblers if she needed to, drink water straight from the purifiers, monitor the situation on cameras, and escape in her skimmer if push came to shove.
As things stood, she'd seen an opportunity to do some fucking over of their ill-mannered guests. She didn't have the access codes to tell any of the air purifiers to shut down- but she did have plenty of tools. Popping a few screws out, cutting a few pipes and wires, and smashing one or two motherboards was really all that was necessary to make the main purifiers just start pumping the same dirty air they'd sucked in back out into the tent. She, meanwhile, in her isolated little sector, was still getting nice, clean, cool oxygen, since she hadn't disabled the secondary systems that supported the people who usually worked among the life support machines.

Ségolène yanked on the bundle of wires in her hand, ripping it out of the duct it had previously been nestled in with a few sparks.

Inside the hab tent, the four main fans that circulated air switched off. Yimin perked up slightly as their constant, low background hum suddenly ceased- hardly something you would notice unless you'd lived here for years, especially over the sounds of looting and flames.

The Reyes family was an old Pontorson name, having arrived on Eptli when the diamond mining operation was just taking off and made a considerable amount of money selling both structural diamond and gems to construction companies and jewelers across the Cluster. The first of this quiet, local dynasty, Mariam Reyes, had been born on Lifen-di, a distant world lush in a way that Eptli very much was not. She had built what was now the family estate, one of Eptli's first big oases, and other families had piled on the bandwagon, building complexes of bio-domes and tunnels where they could relax and enjoy themselves outside of town.
The Reyes estate was fairly close to town, now connected by a private monorail that led to their large property inside the main hab tent (though the tunnel had been imploded to ensure no alien raiders would wander down it). It was hardly hidden, winding through several canyons and mountains and up onto a small, icy plateau. Its size, its proximity, and its lack of concealment guaranteed that Faithful and his teams would find it swiftly enough.

However, they might not have been counting on the old security systems that still waited, dormant, out in the freezing vacuum. There were ten people inside the complex, all of who had been alerted by cameras and radar of the approaching threat and now waited anxiously in a skimmer in case they had to leave.
The security aeais that kept watch over the estate felt no such anxiety. The oases of Eptli had teeth, and the largest among them often had the sharpest. Their radar quickly picked up the Ozlukar flier that had flown overhead and spotted them, and a pair of missiles was immediately loosed from a disposable tube that had been buried under the regolith seventy years previously. The missiles were an old Taihani model designed to work against uulchi shuttles in the frigid dark of asteroid belts and the moons of gas giants, but they remained quite functional.
As for Faithful and his karts, Mariam Reyes and her descendants had not neglected to protect their landward approaches either. They were quickly pinpointed by cameras, and a few auto-turrets hidden among the gleaming bio-domes powered up for the first time in decades and began slinging depleted uranium slugs at the Ozlukar at a rate of several thousand per minute. This was accompanied by a single heavy security drone, which resembled something in between an airplane and a missile boat, and which used a gravity cushion to begin making its way down from the top of the mesa-like hill the complex was centered on, loosing rockets as it came.

by **The Nuclear Fist** » Sat Mar 26, 2016 4:07 pm

It was the high flier that spotted movement first. The aircraft's arrays went haywire, giving it enough time to scramble its defense systems. The first missile had its systems confused, and chased after a dummy rocket the pilot had dropped at the last moment. The second missile was destroyed by high powered, explosive buckshot, though the resulting explosion was a bit close for comfort, doing minor damage to plane and rattling it enough to nearly take it out of the sky. Quickly the pilot loosed a few missiles of its own, aimed at the complex itself, before promptly taking off back towards headquarters, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. The aircraft would quickly radio in for reinforcements to be sent.

Faithful and his men on the ground were less lucky. The karts were too lightly armored to be able to withstand so much firepower from the turrets, as they were merely scout vehicles. Their strength was in their speed and maneuverability. Only Faithful's kart, a customized machine with a massive twin engines that belched fire and heavier than normal armor plating, could hope to withstand the torrent. Two of the karts were immediately disabled, the hailstorm of fire chewing threw their engine blocks and turning them into bricks, with only a precious few the crew being able to bail out before being turned to mulch. Not that it had helped much, the missiles quickly struck the karts, exploding them in great clouds of flame and smoke.

Only Faithful's kart was so lucky as to avoid immediate death. Faithful gripped the twin barreled cannon in its mount, firing wildly at the heavy security drone with the heavy, burning plutonium-core slugs so in vogue amongst the Ozlukar warriors. Not that it made much difference.

"Turn back!" Faithful screamed down at the driver. "Turn back before we're slagged!" The driver did so even before being told. Faithful kept the gun in a death grip, eyes glued to the crude computer screen guiding his shots, baring them straight down at the drone. The kart swerved and zig-zagged, doing its best to avoid being obliterated by oncoming missiles. With every explosion, the warriors within grew more tense, sweating bullets and praying to their gods. The security drone did eventually cease following them, and as the main settlement came back into view, a palpable feeling of ease took hold. Faithful himself felt drained, his age seemingly catching up with him all at once.

Faithful Kharkarek arrived in the town's square, much to the surprise of the assembled warriors. He looked much worse for wear, soaked with sweat and wild eyed, a limp strand of hair glued to his face. He pressed it back over his head. The man known as Kharkarek was a veteran of a thousand battles and raids, earning his reputation as a skilled leader and iron tough warrior. He had been upset the moment Lord Colossus had assigned him to babysit some Church boy's first raid, and had grown only more upset when the boy proved to be a bigger asshole than anticipated. Still, he'd kept his pride in check, letting the boy take the reins and lead. It had proved a poor move.

He found the bastard lazing about on his "throne", drinking and enjoying the festival of fire before him. Faithful snarled and spat, pointing an accusing finger at the young chieftain.

"You stupid fuck!" He screamed, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Damn near all my squad is dead because you fucking sent us out with nothing!" Churghalog's eyes widened briefly, his lips pursed together as he seemed to contemplate how best to respond.

"I didn't do anything," he began. "You lost your men, Kharkarek. Not I." There was an audible gasp as Churghalog referred to his older counterpart by his birth name, failing to call him by, or even include, his blood name. Such was a severe insult, reserved only for cowards and traitors. Churghalog stood up to his full height and strode towards Faithful, coming close enough to nearly touch chests. He was taller, but Faithful was broader. And while the raw strength and vigor of youth played in Churghalog's favor, the grizzled old raider still seemed to be made of grit and slabs of muscle, and was a skilled fighter. But he had dared to challenge a chieftain in front of his own tribe, and that could not be allowed to slide.

"Perhaps you've gotten too old, Kharkarek. Perhaps the Lord Colossus was mistaken to send you on this raid, maybe you've just not got what it takes anymore. Maybe you've gotten weak." Churghalog spat. "Maybe you've gotten soft." He said, emphasizing by poking the hefty warrior in his gut. Faithful responded in kind by roaring and thrusting his head forward, bringing his forehead into the young chieftain's snout with an audible crunch. Whatever the boy had expected, it hadn't been that.

Churghalog reeled back, a meaty fist grasping his bloody snout. He made an attempt to correct the break, easing the crookedness somewhat but sending out a torrent of blood. Other warriors quickly backed the two up, as yet another drew a large circle in the dirt around their feet. This had been a long time coming, a feud forming between the two arrogant men that could be settled only in a duel. The rules didn't need to be said, everyone already knew it would be to the death. The bespectacled scribe moved behind the throne, setting up a crude camera to film the fight. He roughly grabbed Jingles, as the slave Yimin was now called, and barked at him to help set everything up.

"You witnessing big thing, Jingles man-thing. Big, big thing." The scribe chirped up excitedly, his grasp of the the slave's language shaky. "Chief Churghalog say Faithful too old for raiding, too fat and soft to fight. That big insult for us. Chief Churghalog not call him Faithful, call birth name Kharkarek. That bigger insult. Faithful challenge Chief to duel. Winner kill loser, take his honor. Faithful part of Hell Bones tribe, not small tribe like Chief Churghalog. Hell Bones Big Chief Dozer Colossus. Big, big chief. Bigger than any other." The scribe explained.

The two warriors stripped off their armor and heavy clothing, until they stood only in their trousers and boots. The dueling ring around them was filled with kak and set alight, ensuring neither would attempt to flee if the fight went poorly for them. The two warriors squared up and circled each other, Churghalog moving quick and nimbly while Faithful conserved himself. It was the young chieftain who attacked first, lunging with a wild shoulder ram, trying to simultaneously knock the wind from his combatant and get him locked into a take down. It failed, as Faithful braced himself for the impact, using the momentum of Churghalog crashing into him to wrap his massive arms around the latter's torso.

The grizzled old raider roared as he lifted the chieftain up into the air, the latter's legs flailing helplessly. Faithful brought him down all at once, colliding Churghalog's face with the ground. His body went slack from the impact, dazed and in a crumpled mess. White spots appeared before his eyes, and blood poured out from his destroyed snout. Faithful stood, delivering a swift kick to Churghalog's head and raiding his fists in triumph, a heavy roar erupting from his chest. The chieftain rose slowly, steadying himself as he wiped the blood from his face.

"So you're still alive, are you?" Faithful jeered. He swung at his counterpart, though Churghalog dodged it, burying his own fist just north of Faithful's gut, knocking the breath from his lungs and nearly doubling it over. He followed it up by grabbing the sides of the man's face, fingers digging into flesh and nearly ripping his ears off, bringing his mouth to impact the chief's swinging knee. Teeth were knocked free and blood spattered on the ground, and a second knee struck the old raider in the eye, splitting his brow. All at once Churghalog shoved Faithful away, and kicked him in the side of the head. Faithful staggered away, his face a bloody mess and his head ringing.

His combatant stunned, Churghalog braced himself and bolted towards him, jumping and bringing both feet forward, planting them into Faithful's chest. The wind was knocked from the old man's lungs, and with a great 'thump' he was knocked to the ground. As Churghalog moved to stomp his former compatriot to death, Faithful brought his mighty fist up, a blow striking Churghalog in the groin with all his power. The latter seemed to nearly wretch, and collapsed, allowing Faithful to plant his considerable weight on the chieftain's chest. Again and again he brought his fists down, great hammers of callused flesh and bone pulverizing his opponent's head. He stuck a finger in one of Churghalog's wounds, digging into it.

The young chieftain jerked his head, bringing Faithful's thumb into his mouth. With all his force he bit down, filling his mouth with blood. Faithful screamed and tried to jerk his hand free, but the damage was done. Churghalog spat blood and the severed thumb back out at his rival. With him distracted, Churghalog shoved Faithful off of him. The latter tried to once again punch him, but fatigue and blood loss had made him sluggish. Churghalog grabbed him by the wrist and brought his foot down on the wounded man's elbow, breaking his arm with a sickening "crack". The crowd roared in a frenzy as Churghalog stomped his foot down on his rival's head. Ear splitting chants of "Chur-gha-log!" filled the air as he stomped again and again, until finally Faithful stopped screaming, his body stopped twitching. His head collapsed under the assault, and just like that the duel was done.

Churghalog scooped up handfuls of viscera and smeared them across his chest, leaving blood streaks. He let loose an animalistic roar as the fire was put out, and he swaggered across the camp, taking Faithful's tribal banner in his hands and breaking the pole apart across his knee. He spat and pissed on it, and trampled it with his feet. Quickly he ordered a second pole erected, and impaled Faithful's naked corpse on it, the top of the spike sticking out from the nape of his neck. The sullied banner was tied around him, causing a chorus of laughter from his fellow tribals. Faithful's own tribe members found it much less funny, and kept quietly to themselves.

"I am chief! Me! And I say we feast, then we ride across this whole fucking planet, and smash anyone that tries to stop us!" Churghalog shouted, only feeding the crowd's frenzy. Food was dragged out and the slaves made to serve it, Churghalog taking the biggest single share and the most grog, eating and drinking upon his throne as his wounds were tended to. This was a great victory for him, he had bested his rival in combat and now he was left to rule unopposed. He felt like a god of war and conquest, and once the morning sun had risen he'd take the horde out and round up the rest of the planet's population, looting and razing their settlements, and making slaves of their people.

by **Senkaku** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 5:02 pm

Awkward Introductions, Chapter Six: River of Stars

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System
JinShan Orbit
Eptli
Pontorson-sur-Ciel

Yimin took in the spectacle of the fight feeling slightly appalled. It was utterly brutal, clearly some sort of tradition among the aliens- and given their otherwise equally barbaric practices, he was hardly surprised, though it was horrific nonetheless. The scribe had, haltingly, tried to explain the process to him as he set up some sort of camera to record it. Clearly the ruthlessness and warlike nature of these hulking xenos extended to their relationships with one another as well as their interactions with other people. Yimin could hardly help to wince at the most crushing blows landed in the fight, but found himself staring as the Ozlukar chieftain stomped his opponent's head into a bloody ruin. It brought back very old memories of his time on Taihan-di, of bayonets and clubs in dark hallways at night.
Afterwards, though, he went about the business of serving their disgusting food and drink to the aliens as they did their best to tend to their leader's wounds. Their medicine was as primitive as their weaponry and their system of settling disputes, it seemed, but barbarians could hardly be expected to have access to the most sophisticated medical technology. They hadn't plundered the hospital much, either, preferring to ransack places full of shinier, more valuable things.
He looked around for the scribe, but then thought better of it. Perhaps it would be better if those get infected. It's not like they could have any way of knowing you were once a doctor.

The partying continued- drinking, eating, some fighting, some drugs, some torture of the various captives they had impaled or strung up around the square. After a while, the spectacle was losing its power to shock or interest Yimin. Besides the monstrous xenos who were wreaking it, the savagery was hardly unusual in its cruelty or vindictiveness. There was nothing unique about the aliens' particular brand of violence and brutality, no particular atrocities that stood out to Yimin after so many years and having seen so much worse on other, less pleasant worlds. Indeed, the setting seemed oddly unsuited for even this rather bland bloodshed. Pontorson's soft air and small houses and quiet streets seemed poor fits for the situation, as if some set designer had made a terrible mistake. They looked almost comical being looted by hulking Ozlukar surrounded by swirling smoke, an unholy yet humorous mixture of two things that had never been meant to be put together.

Perhaps if I get to leave with them, things will get more interesting, he thought, suppressing a sigh, and went to go refill more drinks for the barbarians as smoke continued to swirl aimlessly throughout the habitat.

The Reyes family compound's security aeai was awake, and feeling as annoyed insofar as such a thing was possible for yt. Aj had, after seeing off the Ozlukar, connected to the Pontorson Net to see what in the name of God was going on that yt had been activated and had had to deploy active measures against an incoming threat.
The Pontorson Net was down. That had begun Aj's annoyance, but it had not ended there. Yt had then tried to access backdoors into the system, tried to load the last backup to the compound's servers, but somewhere deep within its subroutines the Net simply wasn't connecting properly.

Radar and optical data, however, were painting a better picture by the millisecond of what was going on. A plume of hot gas and debris was still settling a few miles away, where there was evidence of a recent and large meteorite impact. Perimeter cameras with a view of the main habitat dome could see cloudiness on the inside that seemed to indicate a fire, and in orbit a number of ships looked to have been disabled or completely destroyed, while some that should have been waiting to land were simply gone- presumably having fled the one operational vessel that still hovered over Eptli.
Once yt detected the one remaining vessel, Aj resigned ytself to losing the radar site that had pinged the ship. There was no way that they would miss the signal, but Aj switched the beam off so they would have to use something other than anti-radiation missiles.

The situation had one logical conclusion: raiders. Aj ordered out the compound's security drones, and sent the one that had destroyed Faithful's party zipping across the plains towards the settlement. Given that yt had spares, it wouldn't hurt to see exactly what was going on. Simultaneously, Aj began opening up various systems in hibernation that it had inside Pontorson. Camera footage from the Reyes house in town indicated that the place had been completely ransacked, and the few remaining exterior cameras showed hulking greenish-yellow aliens looting and murdering and an otherwise deserted and smoke-filled town.
Well, that's not promising.

Aj ordered the drone to fire a few missiles at the hab tent's base and then zip back into the relative safety of the badlands that the oasis was hidden within, where yt had auto-turrets to provide overlapping fields of fire. Let's just let them sit in town and enjoy themselves. No need to risk the compound's safety to try some idiotic maneuver to get rid of then, especially since they have that ship lurking up there.

Perhaps I should send a distress signal? No, someone's already thought of that, I'm sure, and they'd probably just drop a bomb on the transmitter site.

Ségolène slammed against the wall as the room suddenly shook, grunting as her funny bone hit the floor and set her entire right arm throbbing. What was that? The room shook again, actual dust falling from the ceiling, and then a third time. Are they blowing up buildings in the main tent? She got to her feet as a less-powerful blast rattled her teeth and walked over to her desktop. The one open feed she'd been able to find, from a service station for skimmers about half a klick away on a ridge with a good view, showed a glorious sight.
In the freezing vacuum outside, three plumes of cold white vapor were expanding, becoming iridescent as water and carbon dioxide froze into millions of tiny crystals. Around the site of the blasts, the rock was glowing orange, spattered like paint, and the base of the hab dome had had titanium plates twisted and buckled here and there by the force.
On the wall-mounted consoles, a number of small red lights had blinked on. Ségolène's eyes widened- whatever had just struck the tent seemed to have caused a breach. She breathed a sigh of relief as the lights switched back to yellow, indicating that the emergency systems had sealed the breach with insulation foam.
Rubbing her bruised arm, she sat down, and started playing computer games. Looks like I may be waiting here for a while.

by **Communist Xomaniax** » Wed May 04, 2016 11:58 pm

Pontorson-sur-Ciel

The festivities of the Ozlukar raiding party continued long after the sun set, and long into the night. Churghalog presided over it, the last trappings of his religious upbringing discarded in an orgy of hedonistic revelry and obscene violence, he and his warriors feasting until sick and drinking their vile grog until drunk to the point of blacking out. Many took to bedding each other, for the bond forged between warriors in battle did not cease when out of it, but just as many forced themselves upon their human slaves. The female slaves were particularly unlucky, forced to endure all manner of depravity and humiliation, many passed around from warrior to warrior until they succumbed to internal injuries. In death they found little respite, for many a corpse was strung up that night, impaled on rubble or torn apart and cooked for food.

Amidst the chaos, neither Churghalog nor his tribe mates seemed to noticed the remnants of Faithful's crew failing to take part in the merriment, or quietly taking down their deceased leader's body and wrapping it in the ruins of his standard. As things died down, and Churghalog posted sentries for the night while the rest of the warriors took to bed, fewer would notice that some of those sentries, also members of Faithful's crew, sneaking off, and those that weren't being silently killed and dragged off. Loyalty amongst the Ozlukar was a tricky thing, often based purely on convenience between tribes. And Churghalog had lost that loyalty the moment he slew Faithful.

Churghalog stirred in his bed in the war tent, despite the pleasant warmth from the hearth's fire. There was much rustling outside, noise that shouldn't exist. The sound of a great lot of boots scuffling, low whispers and grunts, and the familiar clinking and clanking of piles of metal and stone being moved. At first he assumed it to be his new slave Jingles, and appropriately threw a boot in the direction of the man thing's bed roll to get it to shut up. It was only when the noises grew louder, and he heard the distinctive, ear shattering roar of longship engines coming to life that he knew it to be neither a dream nor a slave.

The chieftain erupted from his bed, fists clenched and veins bulging. He grabbed his weapon and tore open his tent flap, exiting into the open air in nothing but his loincloth and boots. Many of his tribe mates, all in various states of undress, were doing the same. Even some of the slaves in their pen were perking up. Churghalog's smoldering eyes fell upon the newly forming crowd, and he snarled when he realized what was going on. Mutiny. Desertion. Faithful's crew had abandoned them, and worse yet had somehow convinced a few of his men to go with them. But it was when his eyes fell upon the loot pile that his heart sank. The bastards robbed us. He thought, raising his weapon into the air and firing wildly at the ships as they took off. His men followed his example, quickly coming to the same conclusion and similarly letting loose a torrent of fire.

But it was too little, too late. Their bullets bounced harmlessly off the longships' hulls, and they quickly made it through the hab-tent and into the sky, disappearing into the void of space. He emptied his drum into the sky and threw his weapon down, his whole body swollen with anger he had nowhere to direct. He threw his fists in the air, bellowing in rage. Things grew even more bleak when his men began to pull the corpses of sentries out of hiding spots, each one being members of his own tribe. Those traitors had robbed him, deserted the party, and killed his tribe mates! And over what, killing some old bastard who'd never shown him a single bit of respect? They were probably off to Khrenalac, to pour poison in the Big Chief's ear about how he was evil and had killed their leader unprovoked.

The Dozer Colossus won't be happy when he finds out. He choked down the urge to vomit, his gut turned sour with dread at having to face an enraged monster like that. He'd never heard of a soul who'd bested the Big Chief, either in combat or in a duel. Everyone who'd tried was dead, and he had a reputation for a kind of cruelty against his challengers that went nearly unmatched in the territories. Panic gripped him for a few moments, before he slowly regained his composure. The Lord Colossus did not take slights against him kindly, but he was still a reasonable man. If he could present his overlord with a big enough tribute, he could redeem itself. But his hopes were dashed when again he looked upon the bare ground where mountains of treasure once stood. What was left for tribute on such a ransacked world? It would take days, time he didn't have, to scrape together enough treasure for a sizable tribute. And even that was assuming his tribe didn't mutiny in the mean time, their own portions being cut down to nothing.

Finally though, as he looked into the despair-filled eyes of his tribe mates, it struck him. A smile snaked across his lips, and he let loose a roar to get the crowd's full attention.

"They stole from us! Killed our men! Turned tail and ran traitor!" He shouted, eliciting jeers and angry snarls from the crowd.

"Now they're hightailing back to Khrenalac to tell the Big Chief himself that we're no good, that we're evil kinslaying bastards! And now we ain't even got any tribute!" The crowd screamed insults directed towards their former comrades and towards the deceased Faithful.

"But I got an idea for us to win over the Dozer! We ain't gonna hand him some shiny thing and beg for mercy, boys! No, we're better than that. We're gonna hand him this!" He said, stomping on the ground and kicking up a cloud of dirt.

"We're gonna give him this whole damned world, wrapped up with a pretty bow! A whole unspoiled world to add to his kingdom! And it's people as slaves too. But that ain't all!" He yelled, pointing to the sky.

"We're gonna be waiting when the enemy comes! And we're gonna hand the Lord Colossus a whole fleet of slagged ships and alien corpses."

The crowd cheered, though their cheers were cut short by the sound of sirens wailing. Scribes hurried to and fro, one hobbling over to Churghalog as fast as his hunched back and malformed legs would allow. The scribe babbled in his ear. Anomalies were detected at the edge of the system by the longship's long range scanners. A nervous grin wracked across his face. The enemy was here. This was it, the battle he needed to prove himself, to save his life and his tribe's. He ordered the scribe to send word back to his tribe on the homeworld. It wouldn't take a war party too long to get here if they rode hard, and they'd need the reinforcements for a proper fight if they wanted to win. At the moment their best was to stall for time, and harass the enemy as best he could in the hopes that he could trick them to make planetfall, where he could hit them harder, even with a skeleton crew.

Churghalog barked his orders. "To the ships! Get ready and man your stations, boys! We've got one fuck of a fight on our hands!"

by **Senkaku** » Sat May 07, 2016 7:33 am

Awkward Introductions, Chapter Six: Dies Irae

Huañak Cluster
Wirru Expanse
Tianhu System

The Silver Star exited gimelspace with about as much grace as a beached whale, her entire enormous bulk heaved up into real space in a plume of photons and strange matter. The uulchi tender vessel immediately fired attitude jets to halt her slight counterclockwise rotation, and her fusion drives continued to burn hard, accelerating her fall towards Tianhu.
Paekja-xi 64 Sim-lak, the commander of this particular vessel, quietly swam around the ship's bridge, looking at the various displays where officers and technicians floated calmly.
"Commander," someone said suddenly. "We're picking up engine signatures around Eptli. Long-range sensors are indicating a number of small vessels beginning to move towards us."
"Let me see," 64 Sim-lak said, jetting over.

On the display, a swarm of tiny green-blue dots had appeared, inching away from Eptli towards the Silver Star. The ship's sensor officer suddenly started talking as more screens blinked to life.
"The vessels are fairly small, metallic, rocket-propelled, light armament. They're surrounded by debris, so scanners are having some trouble distinguishing them, but there look to be around twenty or thirty."
"Increase our burn by 50%," 64 Sim-lak said to no one in particular, and the shipboard AI made an affirmative pulse. There was a brief sense of heaviness, as if the water pressure were increasing, and then everything returned to normal as 64 Sim-lak's cuttlebone adjusted. He swam back to his personal console.
His sensor officer rippled blue and red. "Commander, it looks as if the enemy are transmitting something. I couldn't say what, at the moment, but I will find the vector."
"Are we ready to begin launching gunships?"
"Yes, Commander. Squadrons One, Two, and Three are fully prepped. As you instructed we've configured Squadron Three for boarding. Squadron Four is still being configured for surface attack, and Squadron Five is in reserve."
"Commence launching. Sensor Officer, we will work on the transmission at a more suitable time."

A faint stream of water vapor suddenly shot in several places from the Silver Star, though it was quickly subsumed by the plume of plasma that the accelerating tender's engines left behind. Three openings suddenly were revealed in the great vessel's smooth, shimmering-gold surface, and out of each of them emerged twelve craft.
The gunships were spat out one at a time, giving each one room to ignite its engines and go streaking ahead of the tender without incinerating the next in line. They were less lovely than the other uulchi ships the Ozlukar had seen thus far- oblong gray things with bumps and pods protruding from their matte, unpainted surface. However, they were far faster, zipping away from their tender towards the longships in their squadrons of twelve. Two of the squadrons quickly outpaced the third, which approached at a slower but still blistering speed.

Once they were within a few light-seconds, the battle began. All twelve gunships began an intense barrage of laser-fire, targeting vulnerable sensor equipment and exposed weapon mounts on the longships. Moments later, they began to fire missiles, releasing a swarm of weapons as they shot past the Ozlukar formation. The missiles would home in on the heat signatures from radiators and thrusters or radar beams from targeting systems, trying to blind and cripple the Ozlukar in preparation for what was coming. The laser-fire became more at-will after the first wave of missiles, now mostly targeting engine blocks rather than exposed sensor mounts and weapons.

Several of the longships, however, were proving more adept at fighting back, jinking, dodging, and returning fire with their cannons. This return fire even damaged one of the uulchi gunships, and forced several others to take evasive action and either employ countermeasures or abort planned missile launches to maneuver.
The Silver Star unleashed her main laser battery. Spears of light lashed out from the hulking golden ship, splitting several of the longships from stem to stern. Others had the uulchi lasers punch straight through their sides, burning through engines, fuel tanks, ammunition, and supplies as if it were nothing. A few of the longships even exploded quite spectacularly when they were hit, leaving nothing but charred wrecks and debris drifting in the void.
For those that survived this intense punishment and continued to make themselves nuisances, the Silver Star fired a swarm of missiles. These were bigger and faster than the missiles unleashed by the gunships, maneuvering to avoid point-defense fire, and they swiftly closed the distance between the tender and the Ozlukar ships.
At this distance from Tianhu, the nuclear explosions of the Casaba howitzer warheads were far brighter than the sun, and the streams of plasma that lanced out from each flashing, short-lived star were an awesome sight. They took some longships head-on, and essentially wiped them out, turning them into stripped skeletons, or scorched through parts of others and left them drifting and irradiated.
Meanwhile, the gunships were slicing up the remaining longships, burning out their engines with missiles and lasers, blasting their sensors and cannons, and in some cases just completely ripping the swift but lightly armored craft to pieces with waves of missiles.

Having sufficiently battered the enemy with the first wave of assaults, the boarding ships then closed for the kill. Irkhaes knew little and less of this particular species and group of raiders- so it at least wanted some cadavers to study, and preferably live specimens. Cleaning out raiders as quickly as possible was always ideal, and capturing a few alive would help expedite the process. The reconfigured gunships approached more slowly, using point-defense lasers to cover themselves from incoming fire, and began launching small pods that at first glance just appeared to be slower-moving missiles that had more maneuvering capabilities than the ones that had already smashed into the longships.
However, just before impact, the little pods would slow drastically, firing harpoons to latch onto the skin of the longships, and each deployed a laser cutter to swiftly gain entry to the Ozlukar craft. They were even courteous enough to seal up the hull breach behind them.

The Ozlukar fighters who would inevitably come to investigate the small hull breaches that the pod-missiles had caused would have an unpleasant experience waiting for them. Each pod was controlled remotely by a soldier on the Silver Star, and they all deployed mechanical tentacles and a compact repulsor-lift to allow them to move freely even in confined spaces. The tentacles themselves could be used like steel whips and grip hard enough to crush bone, and the motors that moved them could yank hard enough to pull apart muscle, sinew, tendons, and entire joints. The pods also came equipped with a pair of sinister-looking metal prongs, the purpose of which quickly became clear. The prongs generated a powerful electric arc, which could be directed at a nearby enemy or channeled down a tentacle to strike someone further away. The many thousands of volts would be more than sufficient to knock even the hulking barbarian xenos out entirely, and afterwards the pods used their lasers to cut and weld scraps of the floor as makeshift manacles for their prone victims. There would be some nasty burns on some wrists and ankles, but it was doubtful they would be fatal.
Of course, eventually the brutes were bound to catch on and start properly trying to fight back. But the multipurpose lasers they carried were quite effective at turning those who made themselves threats into unrecognizable lumps of charcoal, and those who tried to close with the seemingly-fragile pods would discover that the thin metal tentacles were as strong as the Dozer Colossus, or perhaps stronger.

It was a swift engagement on the surviving longships, as the uulchi robots systematically stormed from room to room and hall to hall on the disabled Ozlukar spacecraft. Most of the Ozlukar were taken alive- stunned and placed in their makeshift chains until better bonds could be created for them. Some of the survivors had had limbs or appendages severed, but most of the victims of uulchi laserfire were quite dead. A few pods had been destroyed by the brutes, but it was of little importance. The barbarians had been subdued. On board the Silver Star, several of the airlocks for visiting air-breathers had been reconfigured into brigs, each with a number of spotless one-person cells. The Ozlukar captives would be bound and tranquilized, and dumped unceremoniously in these cells by exosuit-wearing uulchi. Those who decided to make trouble during their transfer or struggle too much would simply be shot.

As they watched Squadron Four bomb the few Ozlukar who remained on the surface, 64 Sim-lak spoke to his sensor officer.
"What was the transmission, then?"
"It was to Eptli. They were ordering someone down there to send for help, though I can't imagine what form that would take. Eptli sent an FTL transmission towards this cluster, but until we intercept a response I can't ascertain how far away the star or stars they were targeting are."
"Very well." 64 Sim-lak swam away, back to his console. "Send our troops into the main hab tent."

The uulchi lander set down about half a kilometer away from Pontorson-sur-Ciel's habitation tent, speeding down from orbit and firing braking rockets at the last minute. As it set down, uulchi skimmers began to emerge from doors in the sides, shooting across the rocky plains towards the hab tent. Not entirely unlike the heavy drone that had driven off Faithful, these craft unleashed intense rocket and cannon fire against the few Ozlukar who had survived Squadron Four's bombing runs outside of the town. Doors in their sides then opened, and out came several squads of uulchi shock troopers, wearing black combat exosuits. They swiftly made their way to the northern entrances to the tent, which were, by and large, accessible and had not been slagged by rockets or bombs. The Ozlukar would have little hope of standing against the shock troopers, or more accurately against their exosuits. The troopers themselves were regular uulchi, soft, small, squishy aquatic creatures, but their exosuits were formidable. Carbon-fiber and titanium armor, multiple autocannons, light rocket-launchers, electric stun cannons, and their multipurpose movement, manipulation, and fighting tentacles made them like the boarding pods on steroids. The Ozlukar did their best to resist, and even knocked a few exosuits out with their incendiary plutonium-core cannon rounds, but once one of the assault skimmers came through a vehicle airlock, it was basically over. Several houses were pulled down by the shock troopers on top of their defenders, while the skimmer simply dropped rockets on structures with Ozlukar holed up inside. Few of the tent's defenders were taken alive- shock troopers rarely prioritized the survival of the enemy- but those who were lucky enough to survive the assault were bundled into shuttles and taken up to the Silver Star's brig just the same.

When Churghalog came to, he would find himself in a spotless, pure-white white room, about fifteen feet by fifteen feet. All of the furniture simply appeared to be coming straight out of the wall or floor- a long platform that could be a bed or a desk, a stool next to it, and a toilet and small basin with a faucet. One of the walls was a translucent, glowing blue film of some sort, but Churghalog would not be able to see through it.
All the chieftain could do now was pray.

Awkward Introductions (FT, IC, Closed)

Awkward Introductions (FT, IC, Closed)

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