So I felt like writing fiction for whatever reason, so here it is. Its grammar is more than likely unforgivable, but pleas try to enjoy nontheless:
Ammoudia's second planetary asteroid wing was quiet. A pack of space whales serenle drifted across the void dotted by gigantic rocks slowly tubling throught their enddless ballet. The majestic creatures were silent and nearly motionless save for the occasional puff of high pressure gas they emitted to manouver around stones too large for them to swallov and digest. Suddenly a wave of excitement spread across the pack, as the whales scrambled toget out of the way of something, that wasn't even there. Not yet anyway.
Then without any warning, out of absolutely nowhere a white and yellow spaceship appeared, somehow strangely reseblant to the critters themselves. There wasn't any radiation, or fancy lights before it arrived. The space didn't seem to contract and bend, nor did a wormhole open. Thes ship simply just wasn't there the one moment, and it was the other. Then it disappeared again. The whales contineued on ther journey through the asteroids, as if nothing had happened.
-We must be getting close...
Commander Thessius remarked silently, as he heard the stutter-warpdrives unmistakable high pitched sqeeking, that you didn't as mutch hear as you felt it in the back of your brains, slov into a clearly audiable clacking. The ship that has been teleporting multiple million times a second has now slowed to a few hundred, and that meant it was nearing its target: Ammoudia, a Hellian second rate colony world.
He was glad, he wouldn't have to endure the journey any longer. He had sealed himself in his cabin for the past seven hours, and tried to stay calm. He hated space travel. All his instincts were screaming at him, that he is in danger, and has to find a way out. he knew very well, that whene the real danger comes, there would be nothing he could do. If the ship came under attack none of his twelve years of training and service as an intelligence agent would help him from getting sucked out of a hullbreach and slowly freezing and suffocating. He would be completelyhelpless, and useless.
Thankfully he wouldn't be for mutch longer, he thought to himself, as the warpdrive stopped its clacking, and the hull rubled as the conventional fusiontorches fired up. While stutterwarp was perfectly capable of keeping a starship in stable orbit, it was standard procedure to normalize orbital velocities after entering a holding pattern. The reason for this was that while the warpcore could change a ship's position, it could never change it's velocity. This meant that if a ship that has previusly been orbiting a gas giant, for example, had it's warpcore disabled above a regular planet, could immedietly be flung out of orbit at escape velocity, or worse it could be flung into the planet itself. The same was true to shuttles leaving the ships warp-field.
And this was exactly what was about to happen, as a PA speaker announced:
-All personell, this is your captain speaking. We have arrived into stable orbit above Ammoudia. Perform a full systems inspection, then you are free to fuck around as you please.
The voice changed to an unnaturally perfect sounding female's:
-Groundside operatives, the mission is ago. Mission clock counting.
-Report to your respective shuttles in the hangar bay!
-Repeat, all groundside operatives report to their respective shuttles. You will be briefed on your way to shore.
Thessius slipped out of his bunk, and grabbed an ancient slugthrower from his desk. The archaic gun was his grandfathers sidearm when he had served in the navy, back in the colonial conflicts. The commandar didn't solely keep the weapon as relic, but also as a last resort. It was manifacturd entirely of nonmetallic, x-ray transparent materials, and its firing system operated without a microwarp-drive to send the bullet multiple times along the accelerator railes.No routine check could pic it up, and it still had enough power to puncture bodyarmour from close range. He slid it into his combat boots, and made haste to the hangars.
The Thebai was a destroyer. A starship designed for capital warefare. Its decivingly natural look hid armourplating that could withstand battleship-born heavy-cannon fire, and weapons that could level cities if used against groundside targets. The combat critical equipment left little space for luxuries. Cabins were suffocatingly small, barracks uncomfortably crowded, and hot bunking was often a thing on longer missions. As such the hangars looked nothing like the usual. Instead of a large gaping hall, that would be a structural weakness, and take precious space, the thebai's hangars looked more like shelves. Shuttles vere tightly packed into a scaffolding one above another, and they were dispatched through airlocs, instead of a shield.
Thessius jumped down a final flight of stairs, and entered his dropship. The bloodtray closed behind him, and the access bridge retracted into the stairwell. He started changing into his combat gear while the shuttle was entering the airlock, as he heard the pilot's voice:
-You can strt the striptease on the way down commander, but I suggest you strap yourself in. We gonna use assisted undocking.
-Right, assisted...
Thessious growled, as he pulled one of the braces over his torso. The airlock cycled, the launchrails magnetized, and the Seagull dropship shot out the back of the destroyer at four miles a second.
Having lost its orbital velocity, it was now plummiting towards the planet.
Operation Ammoudian Gallow has begun.
Any critique is of course apperciated, also I plan on contineuing it tomorrow.
Amoudian Gallow
Moderators: The Shadowscythe, Quantumsurfer
Amoudian Gallow
I couldn't come up with anything smart, original or funny, so <=THIS=> is what you get.
ENJOY IT!!!
ENJOY IT!!!
Re: Amoudian Gallow
I lied, here is the followup:
Thessius almost threw up, as the Seagull was shot forth like some cannon cartridge. Acceleration compensators would prevent injuries while experiencing extreme acceleration, like an "assisted undocking", but one never quite got used to it. He wondered why was the Corporate State in such a hurry to get its agents groundside, as his HUD begun playing the briefing.
Thessius already knew what it was telling, but he couldn't sut it off. Red tape: integral part of even ones combat helmet. This little analogy described Hellios very well, he wondered to himself, as he was pretending to look at the satellite images presented to him by the HUD. He had to, as it was tracking his eyes, and would repeat until he inspected every part of the briefing.
Anyone with half of a brain could figure it out for themselves. Ammodia was a so called "private world" directly owned by the Thessolonaki Sector Administartive Office, one of the twelve bodies governing individual parts, Sectors, of the Corporate State. While the state was becoming less and less a company, and more and more like a traditional starempire, the SAd-O s were still companies to their very core. Nothing mattered more thab the projected profits of the monetary quarter. And the private worlds were the perfect monetary construct.
The inhabitants worked for the SAd-O, and recieved their salary from them. Then they went to the supermarkets, car saloons, and recreational establishments of the SAd-O, and spent their salary on goods and services manifactured by themselves. No money went in no money came out, and the Offices walked away with a healthy surplus of goods to sell elswhere.The only way to brake free of the stranglehold of a private world was to enlist in the Self Defence Forces, but with the Scythian invasion underway the deathrates rose to fourty percent a year, and the citizens used to their quiet life on their backwater planets coldn't stomach it.
Yes they would watch Blod Bowl and the likes, they would even go Dungun hunting once in a while, but they would avoid danger.Now however as the menacing thtreat of Scythia grew closer, the SAd-O s begun funneling founds out of their private worlds, to fortifie their respective headquarters, and bolster their private armies. First it only meant the rise of prices of luxuries, then basi items. Food shortages quickly followed, and public services where staggering. Electricity and heating went offline, and as the majority of peacekeeping forces were shipped back to the sectors' core worlds, private worlds like this saw a massive rise in crimerates. Corporate State forces were sparse, and couldn't keep order in the absence of the private armies of the Offices.
Public unrest grew, and demonstrations were commonplace. At the aniversary of the Unification of Colonoes, and funding of the Corporat State, the usual parade turned into a protest of five million in the capital, demanding better living conditiones. The protest hen turned violent, and the ebels effectively took over Ammodia. Thessius and four other intelligence agents were sent down, to assist the remaining Corporate State police forces in squashing the rebellion. They were supposed to eliminate or capture a figure named Darius, who was leading the insurrection, and seemingly aggrevating the desperate colonists against the Corporat State itself.
Thessius knw thes "prophets" all too well. they were usually some low ranking officer tired of the system, wihth enough wits, to get the fantasies of some uncultured rednecks moving. They gathered some followeres, wrecked some havoc, and then either fled beyond known space, to be hunted down by pirates, or they were eleminated by Corporate State agents like himself. He only wondered why would this assignment need five of his kind.
At this point the Briefing was long over, and sunbeams pierced into the troop bay of the Seagull, as the bloodtray slowly opened, and revealed what was once Ammodias interplanetary spaceport. The gigantic fields of landingpads were pockmarked with craters and scorchmarks. Burnt out fuel trucks and civilianspacecraft dotted the landscape. The enourmous pile of rubble, that was once the second arrivals terminal had collapsed unther the impact of a massive civilian Demeter series freighter. The ship lay daid inbetween the remnants of the terminal. With it's spine broken by the fall it resembled the grotesque image of a caterpillar being swallowed by a lionmole.
As the dropship begun its final approach, the bringers of it's doom became visible. Smoldering wrecks of two Armadillo main battletanks, and at least twenty dead husks that once used to be Raptor hardsuites told the tale of a fight, that was long over. As Thessius gazed over the now calm battlefield, he felt a sudden surge of anger.
Anger towards the people, that wouldn't fight for their nation, but could be talked into fighting against it. He took his anger, and put it away for a more apropriate time. Now he had to focus on the mission.
The Seagull slowed to a halt, and gently touched down next to something that once used to be a hangar, and had been preserved remarkably well. The commander exited the shuttle, and as soon as he touched the metal plated runway it blasted off at breakneck speed back to the Thebai. The ssius looked around and noticed how strangely quiet everithing was. Unnervingly quiet.
The silence was broken by footsteps heading towards him from the hangar. It was a woman clad in a neatly maintained officers uniform.
-Lietuant Cassine, Department of Internal Affairs, are you the agent the airheds upstairs sent us?
-Commander Thessius Department of Intelligence. Do you have anything new on the situation? Your request for help was rather...vauge about the situation.
-Yes, our transmission was cut short, when they cut power to HQ. But we can't talk out here. In the hangar there is a mobile command trailer. we will discuss details inside.
-Understood ma'am!
Said Thessius followed by a comically exeggersted salute. Then he entered the hangar alongside the woman.
To be contineued.
Critique is still apperciated.
Thessius almost threw up, as the Seagull was shot forth like some cannon cartridge. Acceleration compensators would prevent injuries while experiencing extreme acceleration, like an "assisted undocking", but one never quite got used to it. He wondered why was the Corporate State in such a hurry to get its agents groundside, as his HUD begun playing the briefing.
Thessius already knew what it was telling, but he couldn't sut it off. Red tape: integral part of even ones combat helmet. This little analogy described Hellios very well, he wondered to himself, as he was pretending to look at the satellite images presented to him by the HUD. He had to, as it was tracking his eyes, and would repeat until he inspected every part of the briefing.
Anyone with half of a brain could figure it out for themselves. Ammodia was a so called "private world" directly owned by the Thessolonaki Sector Administartive Office, one of the twelve bodies governing individual parts, Sectors, of the Corporate State. While the state was becoming less and less a company, and more and more like a traditional starempire, the SAd-O s were still companies to their very core. Nothing mattered more thab the projected profits of the monetary quarter. And the private worlds were the perfect monetary construct.
The inhabitants worked for the SAd-O, and recieved their salary from them. Then they went to the supermarkets, car saloons, and recreational establishments of the SAd-O, and spent their salary on goods and services manifactured by themselves. No money went in no money came out, and the Offices walked away with a healthy surplus of goods to sell elswhere.The only way to brake free of the stranglehold of a private world was to enlist in the Self Defence Forces, but with the Scythian invasion underway the deathrates rose to fourty percent a year, and the citizens used to their quiet life on their backwater planets coldn't stomach it.
Yes they would watch Blod Bowl and the likes, they would even go Dungun hunting once in a while, but they would avoid danger.Now however as the menacing thtreat of Scythia grew closer, the SAd-O s begun funneling founds out of their private worlds, to fortifie their respective headquarters, and bolster their private armies. First it only meant the rise of prices of luxuries, then basi items. Food shortages quickly followed, and public services where staggering. Electricity and heating went offline, and as the majority of peacekeeping forces were shipped back to the sectors' core worlds, private worlds like this saw a massive rise in crimerates. Corporate State forces were sparse, and couldn't keep order in the absence of the private armies of the Offices.
Public unrest grew, and demonstrations were commonplace. At the aniversary of the Unification of Colonoes, and funding of the Corporat State, the usual parade turned into a protest of five million in the capital, demanding better living conditiones. The protest hen turned violent, and the ebels effectively took over Ammodia. Thessius and four other intelligence agents were sent down, to assist the remaining Corporate State police forces in squashing the rebellion. They were supposed to eliminate or capture a figure named Darius, who was leading the insurrection, and seemingly aggrevating the desperate colonists against the Corporat State itself.
Thessius knw thes "prophets" all too well. they were usually some low ranking officer tired of the system, wihth enough wits, to get the fantasies of some uncultured rednecks moving. They gathered some followeres, wrecked some havoc, and then either fled beyond known space, to be hunted down by pirates, or they were eleminated by Corporate State agents like himself. He only wondered why would this assignment need five of his kind.
At this point the Briefing was long over, and sunbeams pierced into the troop bay of the Seagull, as the bloodtray slowly opened, and revealed what was once Ammodias interplanetary spaceport. The gigantic fields of landingpads were pockmarked with craters and scorchmarks. Burnt out fuel trucks and civilianspacecraft dotted the landscape. The enourmous pile of rubble, that was once the second arrivals terminal had collapsed unther the impact of a massive civilian Demeter series freighter. The ship lay daid inbetween the remnants of the terminal. With it's spine broken by the fall it resembled the grotesque image of a caterpillar being swallowed by a lionmole.
As the dropship begun its final approach, the bringers of it's doom became visible. Smoldering wrecks of two Armadillo main battletanks, and at least twenty dead husks that once used to be Raptor hardsuites told the tale of a fight, that was long over. As Thessius gazed over the now calm battlefield, he felt a sudden surge of anger.
Anger towards the people, that wouldn't fight for their nation, but could be talked into fighting against it. He took his anger, and put it away for a more apropriate time. Now he had to focus on the mission.
The Seagull slowed to a halt, and gently touched down next to something that once used to be a hangar, and had been preserved remarkably well. The commander exited the shuttle, and as soon as he touched the metal plated runway it blasted off at breakneck speed back to the Thebai. The ssius looked around and noticed how strangely quiet everithing was. Unnervingly quiet.
The silence was broken by footsteps heading towards him from the hangar. It was a woman clad in a neatly maintained officers uniform.
-Lietuant Cassine, Department of Internal Affairs, are you the agent the airheds upstairs sent us?
-Commander Thessius Department of Intelligence. Do you have anything new on the situation? Your request for help was rather...vauge about the situation.
-Yes, our transmission was cut short, when they cut power to HQ. But we can't talk out here. In the hangar there is a mobile command trailer. we will discuss details inside.
-Understood ma'am!
Said Thessius followed by a comically exeggersted salute. Then he entered the hangar alongside the woman.
To be contineued.
Critique is still apperciated.
I couldn't come up with anything smart, original or funny, so <=THIS=> is what you get.
ENJOY IT!!!
ENJOY IT!!!
Re: Amoudian Gallow
As he entered the hangar, in the dim light coming through a hole in the roof, among the mangled girders that once held the roof Thessius saw a civilian trailer. On it's side was a huge and colorful advertisement prompting the reader to taste the delicious Paramite Pies, as manifactured by Rupture Farms. This was where they were headed. He turned questioningly to Cassine.
-We commandeered these command trailers from the Offices private peacekeeping forces, after they decided to take their leave. Hiding in plain sight is the best way to remain undetected. It has worked so far.
-Let's hope it stays that way.
Thessius muttered as they climbed inside.
-So now you can bring me up to speed.
-Yes, of course. As I was telling, we couldn't send the details because they cot the power to HQ, and then we got overrun. But let's start from the beginning.
-So people around here got more and more angry at the Office, as living conditions plummeted. And the festival they usually hold on the aniversary of the Foundition turned into a protest. Most of the five million living in the capital were there. Just as the Director was trying to calm the masses gathered in the parade square, someone hijacked the PA speaker systems.
-That would be this Darius figure we are after right?
-Exactly. He claimed, that the employees here were being abused by the Office. In that he was right I might add. Then he began spewing the usual revolutionary speech, and the Director got scared. He orderd the security to "diffuse" the protest.
-Serves him right. Shoting a group of five million pissed off protesters takes a special kind of moron.
-I don't exactly disagree. Because that was the point where hell broke loose. And things only went downhill after that. They cut the power almost immedietly, and whatever was left of the SAd-O s private forces didn't stand a chace without their static defences.
-Wouldn't they have backup generators? Not even they are that amaturish.
-The backups were all busted. They never had to use them so they didn't notice the sabotage. The rebels also managed to snatch a whole transport's worth of armour the Sad-O was about to ship off planet.
-So now they are better armed than us, thats just great. Darius must have arranged that. He seems to know his stuff.
-He is a carrier revolutionary, if you ask me. Things just went too smoothly. He must have practiced it before. Just as they had the firepower they moved in on the HQ. With the drones spred out across the city to try and persuade rebels to put down arms, we didn't stand a chace. They shelled the place with tanks, and as we wee busy destroying the surveilance stations and drone controls, they infiltrated on foot.
-That means now they have the building, and the survailance systems. This is why we couldn't speak.
-CCTVs, Scanners, Recon Drones, Radar Stations, Seismic Monitors, Satellites, everything. We can barely take two steps without something spotting us.
-Well at least the Thebai could take care of the Satellites.
-No use. They see us anyways, and we still have some uplinks left. We would only be blinding ourselves.
-What about the rest?
-They have some sort of software block keeping us out from most of the systems. I don't understand it, but the basic premise, is that theirneckbeards are smarter than ours.
-Hey! Maybe you should fire me then, and try to keep this bucket undetectable yourself.
Came an annoyed voice frm the back of the truck.
-Shut it Talos! If you haven't figured yet, this guy is important.
The lietuant shouted back at the technician. She then turned to Thessius again.
-Any questions?
-Where are we going now, would be an appropriate one, what do you think?
the Commander pointed out, with a hint of nnoyance in his tone.
-Nowhere until we get the signal.
-You seemed to be in quite a hurry getting us groundside, how come now we are waiting around?
-Vehicle traffic is sparse, and we don't want you getting intercepted. Our units will rule away Insurrectionist forces, and clear a path for us to the new HQ. Till then we just sit tight.
-So there is nothing to do but wait?
Asked Thessius. He was deep in his thoughts, and barely payed attention.
-Yes, anything else you'd like to know?
The commander didn't seem to notice the question at first, but he suddenly snapped out of it.
-As a matter of fact yes. What forces do have at your disposal?
-The bulk of our forces was made up of drones. When we abandoned HQ, we destroyed the control overrides, but we didn't have tome to wreck the kill switch. If we start using them, they turn them off right away. But we still have abot two dozen Mosquitos. They are patrolling the area around the new Command base. A whole platoon of shocktroopers also survived the initial chaos. They are held in reserve. And, yes, we managed to evacuate almost two hundred Raptor hardsuites. They were designed for crowd control, so they have a harpoon instead of heavy weapons, that lets them scale buildings, r herd people with the cable. Even we have one in the back.
Just as she finished, the van begun moving. They were en route, and hey ad no idea of the things to come.
-We commandeered these command trailers from the Offices private peacekeeping forces, after they decided to take their leave. Hiding in plain sight is the best way to remain undetected. It has worked so far.
-Let's hope it stays that way.
Thessius muttered as they climbed inside.
-So now you can bring me up to speed.
-Yes, of course. As I was telling, we couldn't send the details because they cot the power to HQ, and then we got overrun. But let's start from the beginning.
-So people around here got more and more angry at the Office, as living conditions plummeted. And the festival they usually hold on the aniversary of the Foundition turned into a protest. Most of the five million living in the capital were there. Just as the Director was trying to calm the masses gathered in the parade square, someone hijacked the PA speaker systems.
-That would be this Darius figure we are after right?
-Exactly. He claimed, that the employees here were being abused by the Office. In that he was right I might add. Then he began spewing the usual revolutionary speech, and the Director got scared. He orderd the security to "diffuse" the protest.
-Serves him right. Shoting a group of five million pissed off protesters takes a special kind of moron.
-I don't exactly disagree. Because that was the point where hell broke loose. And things only went downhill after that. They cut the power almost immedietly, and whatever was left of the SAd-O s private forces didn't stand a chace without their static defences.
-Wouldn't they have backup generators? Not even they are that amaturish.
-The backups were all busted. They never had to use them so they didn't notice the sabotage. The rebels also managed to snatch a whole transport's worth of armour the Sad-O was about to ship off planet.
-So now they are better armed than us, thats just great. Darius must have arranged that. He seems to know his stuff.
-He is a carrier revolutionary, if you ask me. Things just went too smoothly. He must have practiced it before. Just as they had the firepower they moved in on the HQ. With the drones spred out across the city to try and persuade rebels to put down arms, we didn't stand a chace. They shelled the place with tanks, and as we wee busy destroying the surveilance stations and drone controls, they infiltrated on foot.
-That means now they have the building, and the survailance systems. This is why we couldn't speak.
-CCTVs, Scanners, Recon Drones, Radar Stations, Seismic Monitors, Satellites, everything. We can barely take two steps without something spotting us.
-Well at least the Thebai could take care of the Satellites.
-No use. They see us anyways, and we still have some uplinks left. We would only be blinding ourselves.
-What about the rest?
-They have some sort of software block keeping us out from most of the systems. I don't understand it, but the basic premise, is that theirneckbeards are smarter than ours.
-Hey! Maybe you should fire me then, and try to keep this bucket undetectable yourself.
Came an annoyed voice frm the back of the truck.
-Shut it Talos! If you haven't figured yet, this guy is important.
The lietuant shouted back at the technician. She then turned to Thessius again.
-Any questions?
-Where are we going now, would be an appropriate one, what do you think?
the Commander pointed out, with a hint of nnoyance in his tone.
-Nowhere until we get the signal.
-You seemed to be in quite a hurry getting us groundside, how come now we are waiting around?
-Vehicle traffic is sparse, and we don't want you getting intercepted. Our units will rule away Insurrectionist forces, and clear a path for us to the new HQ. Till then we just sit tight.
-So there is nothing to do but wait?
Asked Thessius. He was deep in his thoughts, and barely payed attention.
-Yes, anything else you'd like to know?
The commander didn't seem to notice the question at first, but he suddenly snapped out of it.
-As a matter of fact yes. What forces do have at your disposal?
-The bulk of our forces was made up of drones. When we abandoned HQ, we destroyed the control overrides, but we didn't have tome to wreck the kill switch. If we start using them, they turn them off right away. But we still have abot two dozen Mosquitos. They are patrolling the area around the new Command base. A whole platoon of shocktroopers also survived the initial chaos. They are held in reserve. And, yes, we managed to evacuate almost two hundred Raptor hardsuites. They were designed for crowd control, so they have a harpoon instead of heavy weapons, that lets them scale buildings, r herd people with the cable. Even we have one in the back.
Just as she finished, the van begun moving. They were en route, and hey ad no idea of the things to come.
I couldn't come up with anything smart, original or funny, so <=THIS=> is what you get.
ENJOY IT!!!
ENJOY IT!!!
-
Quantumsurfer
- Contest Manager
- Posts: 2601
- Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 5:27 pm
Re: Amoudian Gallow
The grammar is forgivable. You'll get better with practice. Following the dialogue was a little awkward but not overly difficult.
I like the central idea here. You present concepts with enough information to make them seem interesting and without getting too bogged down in the details. The ideas themselves are also evocative. The broiling revolution, the seemingly bent over a barrel resolution team, etc. There feels like a lot of good back and forth and I'm interested to see how you develop that aspect in particular.
I like the central idea here. You present concepts with enough information to make them seem interesting and without getting too bogged down in the details. The ideas themselves are also evocative. The broiling revolution, the seemingly bent over a barrel resolution team, etc. There feels like a lot of good back and forth and I'm interested to see how you develop that aspect in particular.