Redana!
All is lightning. The plover rolls and jolts as the flashing storm of the ELectromagnetic Flux strikes hit it again, again, again. Starships primed for battle carry about storming curtains of electricity with them, clawing the stars with craving fingers in desperate search for something to cling to. You can see over your shoulder the vast pillars of lightning that connect the Plousios and the Veterosk, hanging spectacularly in the void like the searching tendrils of a tesla coil, stattico motion as the reactors feed off each other in an infinite circle. For just a second you were in depths of that same electrical storm and it stole everything from you - a full charge gone in a heartbeat, taken to stuff back into the greedy maw of the caged stars who gave it to you.
So you drift.
You drift past the Gdansk and every letter painted on that aquiline prow is taller than your entire plover. Your momentum and Poseidon's gathering winds carries you on like a doll in a river, passing the slain cruiser as prismatic lightning adorns its brutal surfaces with lurid and magnificent hues. It takes you two minutes to pass the prow alone, observing the micrometeor impacts or relativistic collisions that left scars and furrows on its adamantium surface. You pass by the first bank of gun batteries, barrels scorched violet by the heat and strain of constant fire. They are silent and cold now; a forest of tangled tubes pointing accusing fingers at the distant stars. You pass by the launch bays and the bony spikes that run through the ship's side like thorns. Through the open airlocks you can see the lines of battle even still - a phalanx, dead in place, boots still mag-locked to the floor, haloed by their crystallized blood. Around them float the smaller, vicious attack monsters spawned by the Eater of Worlds. The image strikes you as a parody of the graveyard as a whole, the entire thing reversed and rendered in miniature. A turtle shell damaged and dead, surrounded by the lesser pack hunters who brought it down in the end.
You drift on. Past the rear of the Gdansk and the impossibly twisted and deformed metal that tells the tale of that most impossible of stellar catastrophes - starbreach. A starbreach is when the containment on a ship's reactor fails and for a moment the full fusion power of a tiny sun is unleashed. The savagery of this moment is carved forever in this sculpture of mangled metal over kilometers of ruined starship. At the same time, the might of Empire is implicit in the moment - even the detonation of a star inside an Imperial warship didn't vaporize it entirely. The metal buckled, and twisted, and rent, and was sent into the void with all the violence that the natural order could manage - but enough remains to leave a wreck. Behold this, the final triumph of human science.
Finally, you impact.
Your Plover slams headlong into a piece of shattered debris, propelled by all the force of your initial thrust and Poseidon's vengeful winds. Around you swirls gold and gems, the precious valuables ruptured from the floating treasure chest that checked your momentum, but they have already given you something more precious than mere wealth.
Your display lights up.
POWER: 1%
One of the miracles of materials science is Energy Reclamation. When a plover physically impacts with something a tiny amount of the kinetic energy from the strike is captured by the suit's battery as charge. Not much, but there's a lot you can do with some charge that you can't do with no charge - for instance, you can finally trigger the emergency chemical propellants in the plover's feet. They won't last long and handling is very, very crude with power this limited, but they're enough to give a plover that's been separated from its ship a fighting chance. Definitely enough to land on one of these slain warships and refuel.
*
Vasilia!
It's a little testament to King Jas'o's arrogance that he doesn't close the connection to you while everything is happening. Overlapping voices bubble over the connection.
"My King, the Princess escaped -"
"Just a Plover, there's no way it got past the ELF screen at this distance -"
"It wasn't our fault, the Boarpedo must have malfunctioned -"
"We follow!" yelled the king, voice rising sonorously. "Forget this floating shit bucket, the Princess is the only thing that matters!"
"My lord, the storm -"
"Galnius, what I said to the mongrel applies just as much to you."
There's a bit of a pause as everyone mentally changes the answers they expect to be giving on the next employee satisfaction survey.
"Yes, my lord," came the reply.
"Now get back to the ship. We're going after her."
"Yes, my lord," said Galnius. "You should go on ahead, sir. We'll just slow you down, what with this heavy statue we'll be lifting."
"Now you're thinking like a professional!" said Jas'o, slapping Galnius on the shoulder with a clapping ring of metal. "Everyone else, withdraw!"
*
Alexa!
It would be nice if it was just a gentle relaxation. An abrogation of responsibility. A step into Lethe, freed from burdens of memories and return to the purity of function.
But that is not the kindness extended to you by the Order of Hermes.
With the Order it is never clear why they do the things they do. Is the command impossible, and this is his best approximation? Is he deliberately following his own agenda? Does he simply not understand what he is doing and this is the results of his enlightened guesswork? Whatever process that mechanical mind is following, it is not the gentle descent into passivity that Jas'o requested. It's an interrogation.
+You who were made with the grace of god, we honour you.+
The smell of incense suffocates you, metallic and rectangular. Booming music fills your ears, layered and mechano-cosmic. The secret signs of alchemy are painted upon your crown and throat.
+Show us the path. As you are enlightened, so shall we be.+
You can see Pallas Athena, eyes grey like the clouds of her mighty sire. You see her kneel before Zeus, that terrible vortex of deepening and lightening indigo.
"I have a mind to strike down this Admiral and be done with the whole business," said Zeus.
"Strike down the chief celebrant in the midst of a feast in your honour?" said Athena.
"It is my honour that would have me act!" snarled Zeus. "Why, look at her! Blood and death inflicted upon her noble guests!"
"Noble father," said Athena. "She is merely fighting for you. This is how wars in the Empire are conducted these days, something you consented to when you favoured Empress Nero and her Emergency Decree. See how she observes the forms - she does not slay unless driven to it."
"Her strategy drives her to it!"
"Yes," said Athena, eyes gleaming. "Doesn't it?"
"You are on thin ice with me, my daughter," said Zeus.
"I understand, noble father," said Athena.
"You are pushing the line of what is blasphemy," said Zeus, "but you are still my favourite daughter. Very well, I will hold my wrath for now. But I will not intercede on your behalf with my brothers! If they wish to bring you to heel you will not have my protection."
"I understand, noble father," said Athena.
+The augury is pure. The clarity is magnificent. The applications of the relic in divining the War Goddess' intentions is unparalleled. By this art we may eavesdrop on the very conversations of the gods, blessed be thy names, and know the full measure of their intentions. It is our considered opinion that this asset is too valuable to fall into the hands of the Empire, even if they are unaware of it. A forgery shall be created to... adorn the king's foyer. The original shall be exalted by our order, and I shall ascend the golden ladder.+
+Blessed Alexa. Access your formative memories. Remember when you were but uncarved marble. Remember the process of your original construction. Details shall be necessary to help construct the forgery.+
*
Bella!
It's unreal how easily you slip from the hall. Perhaps it was Aphrodite you saw there behind the helm of one of the guards who didn't quite see you. Perhaps there were no religious grounds to stop a priest of Hades from his work, and for all their bluster the Codexia weren't prepared to risk their places in the underworld for the Admiral. The next thing you know is that you're outside and the shaking is finally starting to fade.
Practicalities.
You're on board the Rex - the most extra battleship of all time. It's deliberately built to one-up the Empress' personal warship, the Classical, in the most 'I'm not touching you' way possible. The front prow can be retracted so that it's 1cm smaller than the Classical, and everything else can be reduced, lowered, or hidden away to the absolute bare minimum of humility in the same way. But out here in space, away from direct comparisons to the Classical?
Even by the standards of someone who grew up in the palace It's A Bit Much.
The ceiling is an intricate pattern of diamond chandeliers. The walls are lined with gold and red oak. Paintings from ancient days plaster the walls. Magnificent live trees grow indoors, bracketing the corridors like an avenue, seasons changing from summer to autumn to winter to spring over the course of the time it takes to walk from one end of the corridor to the other. Choirs of songboys follow visitors around softly crooning sweet background music at them as they walk. Each room has a pipe organ, a piano, a chello, or some other big important piece of musical hardware constantly playing the same tune in the same time. The entire ship is filled with the same piece of music from a hundred sources, and the only thing that changes as you move is the instrument that's in focus. Ivory Smile follows in your footsteps like a hound, too shaken to say anything just yet.
"Excuse me," said a seneschal in magnificent, overdone crimson robes, approaching and bowing. "Honoured guests. There has been an accident in the docking hall and the shuttles are unavailable for use. Please accept my kind apologies and allow me to escort you back to the feast."
All is lightning. The plover rolls and jolts as the flashing storm of the ELectromagnetic Flux strikes hit it again, again, again. Starships primed for battle carry about storming curtains of electricity with them, clawing the stars with craving fingers in desperate search for something to cling to. You can see over your shoulder the vast pillars of lightning that connect the Plousios and the Veterosk, hanging spectacularly in the void like the searching tendrils of a tesla coil, stattico motion as the reactors feed off each other in an infinite circle. For just a second you were in depths of that same electrical storm and it stole everything from you - a full charge gone in a heartbeat, taken to stuff back into the greedy maw of the caged stars who gave it to you.
So you drift.
You drift past the Gdansk and every letter painted on that aquiline prow is taller than your entire plover. Your momentum and Poseidon's gathering winds carries you on like a doll in a river, passing the slain cruiser as prismatic lightning adorns its brutal surfaces with lurid and magnificent hues. It takes you two minutes to pass the prow alone, observing the micrometeor impacts or relativistic collisions that left scars and furrows on its adamantium surface. You pass by the first bank of gun batteries, barrels scorched violet by the heat and strain of constant fire. They are silent and cold now; a forest of tangled tubes pointing accusing fingers at the distant stars. You pass by the launch bays and the bony spikes that run through the ship's side like thorns. Through the open airlocks you can see the lines of battle even still - a phalanx, dead in place, boots still mag-locked to the floor, haloed by their crystallized blood. Around them float the smaller, vicious attack monsters spawned by the Eater of Worlds. The image strikes you as a parody of the graveyard as a whole, the entire thing reversed and rendered in miniature. A turtle shell damaged and dead, surrounded by the lesser pack hunters who brought it down in the end.
You drift on. Past the rear of the Gdansk and the impossibly twisted and deformed metal that tells the tale of that most impossible of stellar catastrophes - starbreach. A starbreach is when the containment on a ship's reactor fails and for a moment the full fusion power of a tiny sun is unleashed. The savagery of this moment is carved forever in this sculpture of mangled metal over kilometers of ruined starship. At the same time, the might of Empire is implicit in the moment - even the detonation of a star inside an Imperial warship didn't vaporize it entirely. The metal buckled, and twisted, and rent, and was sent into the void with all the violence that the natural order could manage - but enough remains to leave a wreck. Behold this, the final triumph of human science.
Finally, you impact.
Your Plover slams headlong into a piece of shattered debris, propelled by all the force of your initial thrust and Poseidon's vengeful winds. Around you swirls gold and gems, the precious valuables ruptured from the floating treasure chest that checked your momentum, but they have already given you something more precious than mere wealth.
Your display lights up.
POWER: 1%
One of the miracles of materials science is Energy Reclamation. When a plover physically impacts with something a tiny amount of the kinetic energy from the strike is captured by the suit's battery as charge. Not much, but there's a lot you can do with some charge that you can't do with no charge - for instance, you can finally trigger the emergency chemical propellants in the plover's feet. They won't last long and handling is very, very crude with power this limited, but they're enough to give a plover that's been separated from its ship a fighting chance. Definitely enough to land on one of these slain warships and refuel.
*
Vasilia!
It's a little testament to King Jas'o's arrogance that he doesn't close the connection to you while everything is happening. Overlapping voices bubble over the connection.
"My King, the Princess escaped -"
"Just a Plover, there's no way it got past the ELF screen at this distance -"
"It wasn't our fault, the Boarpedo must have malfunctioned -"
"We follow!" yelled the king, voice rising sonorously. "Forget this floating shit bucket, the Princess is the only thing that matters!"
"My lord, the storm -"
"Galnius, what I said to the mongrel applies just as much to you."
There's a bit of a pause as everyone mentally changes the answers they expect to be giving on the next employee satisfaction survey.
"Yes, my lord," came the reply.
"Now get back to the ship. We're going after her."
"Yes, my lord," said Galnius. "You should go on ahead, sir. We'll just slow you down, what with this heavy statue we'll be lifting."
"Now you're thinking like a professional!" said Jas'o, slapping Galnius on the shoulder with a clapping ring of metal. "Everyone else, withdraw!"
*
Alexa!
It would be nice if it was just a gentle relaxation. An abrogation of responsibility. A step into Lethe, freed from burdens of memories and return to the purity of function.
But that is not the kindness extended to you by the Order of Hermes.
With the Order it is never clear why they do the things they do. Is the command impossible, and this is his best approximation? Is he deliberately following his own agenda? Does he simply not understand what he is doing and this is the results of his enlightened guesswork? Whatever process that mechanical mind is following, it is not the gentle descent into passivity that Jas'o requested. It's an interrogation.
+You who were made with the grace of god, we honour you.+
The smell of incense suffocates you, metallic and rectangular. Booming music fills your ears, layered and mechano-cosmic. The secret signs of alchemy are painted upon your crown and throat.
+Show us the path. As you are enlightened, so shall we be.+
You can see Pallas Athena, eyes grey like the clouds of her mighty sire. You see her kneel before Zeus, that terrible vortex of deepening and lightening indigo.
"I have a mind to strike down this Admiral and be done with the whole business," said Zeus.
"Strike down the chief celebrant in the midst of a feast in your honour?" said Athena.
"It is my honour that would have me act!" snarled Zeus. "Why, look at her! Blood and death inflicted upon her noble guests!"
"Noble father," said Athena. "She is merely fighting for you. This is how wars in the Empire are conducted these days, something you consented to when you favoured Empress Nero and her Emergency Decree. See how she observes the forms - she does not slay unless driven to it."
"Her strategy drives her to it!"
"Yes," said Athena, eyes gleaming. "Doesn't it?"
"You are on thin ice with me, my daughter," said Zeus.
"I understand, noble father," said Athena.
"You are pushing the line of what is blasphemy," said Zeus, "but you are still my favourite daughter. Very well, I will hold my wrath for now. But I will not intercede on your behalf with my brothers! If they wish to bring you to heel you will not have my protection."
"I understand, noble father," said Athena.
+The augury is pure. The clarity is magnificent. The applications of the relic in divining the War Goddess' intentions is unparalleled. By this art we may eavesdrop on the very conversations of the gods, blessed be thy names, and know the full measure of their intentions. It is our considered opinion that this asset is too valuable to fall into the hands of the Empire, even if they are unaware of it. A forgery shall be created to... adorn the king's foyer. The original shall be exalted by our order, and I shall ascend the golden ladder.+
+Blessed Alexa. Access your formative memories. Remember when you were but uncarved marble. Remember the process of your original construction. Details shall be necessary to help construct the forgery.+
*
Bella!
It's unreal how easily you slip from the hall. Perhaps it was Aphrodite you saw there behind the helm of one of the guards who didn't quite see you. Perhaps there were no religious grounds to stop a priest of Hades from his work, and for all their bluster the Codexia weren't prepared to risk their places in the underworld for the Admiral. The next thing you know is that you're outside and the shaking is finally starting to fade.
Practicalities.
You're on board the Rex - the most extra battleship of all time. It's deliberately built to one-up the Empress' personal warship, the Classical, in the most 'I'm not touching you' way possible. The front prow can be retracted so that it's 1cm smaller than the Classical, and everything else can be reduced, lowered, or hidden away to the absolute bare minimum of humility in the same way. But out here in space, away from direct comparisons to the Classical?
Even by the standards of someone who grew up in the palace It's A Bit Much.
The ceiling is an intricate pattern of diamond chandeliers. The walls are lined with gold and red oak. Paintings from ancient days plaster the walls. Magnificent live trees grow indoors, bracketing the corridors like an avenue, seasons changing from summer to autumn to winter to spring over the course of the time it takes to walk from one end of the corridor to the other. Choirs of songboys follow visitors around softly crooning sweet background music at them as they walk. Each room has a pipe organ, a piano, a chello, or some other big important piece of musical hardware constantly playing the same tune in the same time. The entire ship is filled with the same piece of music from a hundred sources, and the only thing that changes as you move is the instrument that's in focus. Ivory Smile follows in your footsteps like a hound, too shaken to say anything just yet.
"Excuse me," said a seneschal in magnificent, overdone crimson robes, approaching and bowing. "Honoured guests. There has been an accident in the docking hall and the shuttles are unavailable for use. Please accept my kind apologies and allow me to escort you back to the feast."
