Cath

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Shuttle bay

Ezra tumbled to the floor and struggled mightily under the weight of another dog-like drone, but couldn’t get free.

“Aargh! Shit nearly crushed my head!” Darnell hollered as another spider robot clambered all over him. He wriggled around, kicking hopelessly against some cargo webbing which wrapped around his legs.

Everything flashed, like they were heading into a thunderstorm. The boom of the engines, unbearably loud through the rip in the hull, morphed into a steady juddering that mixed in with the whistle of the wind and crackle of multiple fires spreading through the shuttle bay.

“Mask, on. Depressurisation detected.” A rich male voice declared. Small hatches clicked open above the bay’s jump seats and masks with their own oxygen converters popped out. The first airlock door lay open.

Ezra shoved the dog out of his way, got up and his right hand went for his sidearm. The girl was tiny compared to the merc, but very quick, and steady on an uneven deckplate. Nevertheless, that was his weapon.

“Hey! Don’t you fucking dare. Get me out of here, tough guy!” Darnell shouted, reaching out a hand from the floor.

Ezra gritted his teeth, boring holes into the back of Eva’s skull through his mask as she cycled the airlock. Finally, he stalked over to his employer. The floor was moving again - the ship’s nose was beginning to pitch forwards.

Engineering

“We’re losing all power, Captain! Switching to auxiliary power!” Zhao had one finger pressed against her earbud. The lights flickered in the Engine Room.

“Vigdis, disconnect the shields then reboot the reactor! Varen, put out these fires! I’ll see if I can salvage output from somewhere to stop us crashing!” The lead engineer was rapidly checking through systems.

“Oh god, Kiran’s fucking dead!” Varen stood up from his seat and peered over the console at the dreadlocked engineer who had frisked Vigdis moments before. Kiran lay smoking on the deck next to the FTL drive, where they’d been trying to manually flip the breakers.

Bridge

Zey received a 3D topographic model of their current flight vector from Wodan and put it up on all consoles. Far below them were mountains. Ahead of them was a large body of water, and beyond that, more mountains. The Jotunheim was still moving at speed, but had noticeably dipped into a downward descent.

“I’ve got nothing. Engines 1 through 3 are dark - auxiliaries are choking. ” Bosko called, flicking overhead switches as bright red lights flashed all around him. Two bright running lights came on like white fingers probing the darkness in front of them.

“Allah kahretsin...ok, I’ve got you. All crew prepare for an emergency landing. Mallory, I need you to find us a safe place to put down.” Zey ordered, pulling up her co-pilot interface. She activated a burst of Deep Work from her chemical gland; it worked to control her adrenaline and allow laser focus on the job at hand.

“Mayday mayday mayday, this is TEC-52-J, we have lost power and are conducting an emergency landing.” Anselm broadcast, activating the Jotunheim’s distress beacon.

---

Darnell and Ezra exited the airlock into absolute pandemonium in the service corridor. People were screaming, pushing each other over to climb upstairs or strap themselves down. Some had fallen, and possessions were starting to slide across the floor towards the Bridge. Medical personnel were struggling with a person on a stretcher.

“Mr Darnell, we need to get strapped in.” Ezra urged. He knew a plane crash when he saw one.

Darnell wasn’t listening though. He turned left, and ran for the ship’s cockpit. The merc followed him.

---

“All passengers, put your mask on and assume the brace position. We are about to make an emergency landing.” Anselm urged. Straps emerged from the back of her seat and secured the comms officer’s neck and arms.

Zey’s eyes widened when she saw the foothills of a vast mountain range zoomed towards them. They were using the aux engines to soften their descent, but they didn’t have enough power to change course. Flames licked over the cockpit windows. Bosko’s bobblehead figurine fell from his console. The entire ship seemed to rattle like a trolley full of shopping. Zeynap started to pray.

“Brace! Brace!” Anselm yelled over the intercom.

---

“Captain! It's the shields!” Darnell gibbered, hammering on the Bridge door.

“Sir!” Ezra snapped, grabbing the burly suited man by the arms and wrestling him back up the steeply pitched deck. He pressed a door button and it opened, revealing a small toilet. Ezra bundled Darnell onto the floor of the tiny room and crouched over him. Darnell grabbed hold of the toilet bowl, screaming incoherently.

Gesith Silbermine

Silbermine watched as fragments tumbled away from the falling ball of flames. First came a large beetle shape, which plummeted towards Lake Núr. Dozens of other boxy shapes followed, spinning and fluttering in the night air towards the marshy ground.

The Glen noble covered his eyes with one hand. The bright ball of flame was upon them but none of the Gesith’s retinue flinched. Silbermine clenched every muscle, prepared to meet the gods face to face. The sound was unbearable…and then it passed overhead.

Silbermine looked up, and round, as the ball of flames screamed into the side of a hill to the south. It bounced, rolled and slid up the side, a firestorm spreading around it to engulf the woodlands on either side. A rolling peal of thunder erupted once more, and then all was quiet. Silbermine raised both gauntleted hands and uttered a braying roar - his knights joined in.

“We are the chosen!”

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Gesith Silbermine’s journey through the marches to the east of Mythadia was only supposed to take a week in total. His retinue had packed light and sent scouts ahead to trace a path through the marshy plains that skirted the southern edge of Lake Núr. They’d planned to ride hard and reach the ruins of Falag-Núr in plenty of time to consult with the Mendicant Seers while the Moon was still new. His father had believed they could see the future, and with their insight he went on to win The Running against all the odds. Silbermine was anxious to repeat this feat before he became too old and lame.

But it seemed the gods were intent on testing his resolve ahead of the Glen’s twice-a-decade choosing of Mythadia’s leader. At least that's how Silbermine had interpreted it. First, the bridge over the river which formed Mythadia’s eastern border was destroyed by a flood stemming from torrential rain on the night they set off from Silbermine’s fortress. Heading south to cross at Ertiseda would have taken too long, so instead they waited a day and then forded it while the water was still quite high. One of the load bearers broke a leg and went under; they never saw the boy again.

The rain had turned their path into a quagmire. Glen were able to travel very quickly, even in armour, in good conditions. But with the ground boggy underfoot they were reduced to little more than a trot. This slow pace opened them up to being accosted by every fisherman and unfortunate on this godforsaken stretch of shore. Silbermine’s banner was not hard to spot, nor was the Gesith himself in his imperial red barding. They begged him to rid their land of the bandits which had swooped in since their Margrave had been killed without a successor.

Unable to just decline with The Running so close, Silbermine and his men spent three days crisscrossing the plain, raiding camps of vagabonds and scaring them off. None would fight against a score of armoured knights. The ones they captured all seemed to think the routes were becoming too dangerous for them to stay much longer anyway. Silbermine knew not what to make of that - he let them go but kept their plunder.

When they finally got to the ruins of Falag-Núr, nearly a week behind schedule, Silbermine was incensed to learn that the ancient fortress was empty! They must have upped and left in a hurry, his scouts reported when they regrouped. They’d even left some of their meagre belongings behind. After cursing their name and waiting for half a day, Silbermine had reluctantly cut his losses and led his retinue back towards civilisation. With the ground drying, they had made much better time. But it seemed the gods were not done with them yet. On the second night of their return journey, the sky opened and a thunderous clap rolled forth. The march lit up as if it were day, before turning to a half-light.

Silbermine emerged from his tent into the circular camp ringed with fires. His knights were already off the floor and on their feet, weapons in hand. They were looking up, so the Gesith looked up as well. A fireball flew towards them from across Lake Núr. Silbermine rose up onto his hind quarters in excitement, fore legs waggling in the air before landing back down again.

“It is a sign from the gods! Stand your ground - we are being tested!” The Gesith boomed. His face was craggy and scarred, but right now his eyes were young with vigour.

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The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

The bridge

Wodan picked one hell of a time to come online. A proximity alarm pinged twice around the bridge as the Jotunheim’s radar picked up six locked-on missiles. Everyone leapt into action.

“Evasive action, NOW!” Zey shouted, diving towards her seat. Bosko immediately went to full speed ahead on the main engines and yanked the control yoke. The Jotunheim’s beetle-like shape exploded forward and pulled up towards the dawn sky, but it was too late. The missiles were moving at 1,200 metres per second, and there was no way the hulking spacecraft could avoid them all. The first missile went straight towards the bulbous shuttle bay on the side.

The shuttle bay

Ezra threw the spasming spider droid onto the shuttle bay floor, gritting his teeth from the pain. He quickly looked down and dipped his fingers into a rip in the undercoat covering his right arm. His fingers came back red with blood - the robot had cut him.

He looked back up at Eva as she came over to grab the spider. He crouched down and picked his assault rifle quickly back up, then stalked towards her.

“No more games. Open this door or I’ll-”

The deck shifted dramatically under their feet and the engines shook the deck under their feet. Everything seemed to move at once - an unsecured box smashed into the soldier’s legs and he stumbled into Eva. Darnell shouted, staggered and fell back hard into a row of jump seats. The airlock door opened, and the sound and sight of screaming civilians could be heard in the service corridor, then they closed again.

Then a massive explosion ripped through the bay. The ramp fell slightly open, and a section of the hull in the corner buckled and burst. Flames gushed in, whipped up by the wind. A maelstrom of shrapnel made a sound like tinkling glass as it impacted surfaces. One of the large straps securing the shuttle snapped as a siren blared.

---

The second missile fizzed past the ship and exploded in front of the bridge as Bosko violently levelled out of its upwards ascent and turned it to the right. A long, thin pleasure craft veered out of the way to avoid crashing into the Jo, and moved straight into the path of the third and fourth missile.

The last two projectiles soared straight into the engine shielding, and the whole aft crackled with bright blue energy. The kinetic barrier forced the missiles to explode early - a savage shockwave buffeted the hull and shook the insides.

Engineering

Zhao strapped in, her face illuminated by glowing in the light of various displays crowded around her.

“Power spike! Someone talk to me!”

“It's the FTL drive ma’am, it's jumping all on its own!” Varen shot back. Vigdis would see dangerous fluctuations in her console’s readings.

“Kill it, now!” Zhao commanded.

“It's not responding!”

The noise was unbearable. The shields were screeching, and now the FTL’s whine had rapidly risen to a crescendo.

“Engineering to Bridge, emergency jump imminent” Zhao yelled into her comms piece.

Vuuuuuuuuuummmmmmm FLASH

The sky was dark, and full of stars over Kanth-Amerek. The only sounds one could hear in the wilderness was the rustle of foliage and call of animals. These calls turned into frantic screeching as a thunderous boom rolled over the land and echoed off the far hills of the Ascendency. The sky flashed, like with lightning, and a dull mauve scar seared into the atmosphere. A bright ball of flame emerged, and hurtled towards the ground.

The Bridge

Zey had only just made it to her seat and strapped in before the panicked call from engineering. Her eyes had involuntarily closed against the bright flash, and now gouts of flame erupted from the shield cabling below the Bridge cockpit windows. The sound of missiles had totally gone, and the engines were eerily quiet, more of a sooradic judder than a continuous sound.

“Where are we? Somebody give me a sitrep right now. Wodan? Welcome aboard - reboot our sensory array.” Zey ordered, staring at the curved bank of screens that folded out of the wall to surround the Captain’s chair. All of her external data sources were making zero sense.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

@PerfectThought you are now accepted! Welcome

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

@PerfectThought thanks for writing up your character

I've left some questions and feedback for you kncdiscord. Let me know if you want me to compose it here.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

@Starlance yeah, Elite and I were just thinking that if the ship's AI controlled servile droids in stock on the ship, that would be ok! I've amended my first answer.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

@PerfectThought

Hey, thanks very much! We are still accepting new characters, yes.

Heavily augmented Humans are permissible; Earth and her colonies have no unified rules on that front. You could have specialised brain functions, limbs, sensory equipment and more. It would be relatively expensive, so tour character would need to have a reason for their gear.

AI of a sort also exists, but not the fully sentient, independent kind you might be thinking of. AI is controlled more tightly by Humans who fear anything which could end up being a more perfect version of them. A perfect AI is also very expensive to create and host, so you wouldn't necessarily have mobile versions, especially not hanging around at Spaceports.

In the context of this roleplay, I think the most plausible AI character you could create would be the ship we're riding in itself! You could present as a hologram on the Bridge and control servile droids that do a lot of the work in the service areas. You could potentially leave the ship and move around as long as the signal reaches.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Hangar 147

The smoke grenade was gradually dying out, revealing a dozen black-clad troops moving into the hangar. Ezra’s team had fanned out behind engineering consoles, spare parts and cargo created near the open end the Jotunheim was slowly flying through. The attackers shot up at the spacecraft’s bulbous engine cowlings before taking cover when the mercenaries returned fire.

Levi ducked behind a small mobile crane, flicked a spent mag out of his AR and clicked a fresh one in. “Looks like they aren’t stopping! Get ready to bug out.” He called over comms, icy wind ripping at his armour.

“Ezra, come in brother, over.” …Static. Then a piercing buzz overrode all other sound in the hangar. Levi gritted his teeth and looked towards the sound. The ship was halfway outside, manoeuvring jets suspending its massive bulk off the floor. The thick wire that ringed its hull on two dozen steel brackets was…shimmering and crackling with blue light. A sound like submarine cable being stretched taut rippled through their skulls, jangling every nerve.

Like a baby bird leaving its nest for the final time, the Jotunheim exited Hangar 147 into the fjords of Norway.

---

The Jo’s shuttle bay

Ezra barely registered the sound of a taser behind him before his muscle memory kicked in. He spun around and swung his rifle at the spider. Its gangly forelegs clung to his gun and back legs scrabbled for a purchase against his chest. Its electric probe glanced off his forearm plate as they staggered around together. Ezra dropped his main weapon and held the robot off with one hand but the spider just scrambled up onto his shoulders and lunged for him again. Though heavy, It wasn’t designed for combat, and struggled to bring its zapper to bear.

In one movement, he drew his sidearm, pressed it against the spider’s underbelly and began firing, sending sharp raps echoing around the shuttle bay.

Darnell had been trying to communicate with the face on the other side of the airlock who he thought was the Captain when they turned away. Upon hearing gunshots, he instantly turned and saw what was happening. He held out his arms in a pacifying gesture.

“Guys! We’re on the same SIDE!”

He moved quickly to Eva and spoke urgently to her.

“I need to talk to the Captain. Tamerlane ran the data from your last test through a different program. If the shields are on and being impacted, and the engines and FTL drive are online, we’re all going to die!”

The sickening sound of the shields coming online simmered up around the engine noises from outside. Darnell cried out involuntarily in despair and grabbed at the slight blonde woman.

“You do get it, right? I don’t want to die! Now get your Captain to open this door right now!”

---

The Bridge

“Dialling them in now, sir.” Bosko confirmed from the Pilot’s chair at the front of the bridge. Floating one hand, he overlaid both potential routes on a 3d model of the region projected to the right of his control yoke. The Jotunheim was primarily controlled from consoles, but there were some ergonomic manual options too, which Jankovic made good use of.

The doors whooshed open and Zey stalked in on the balls of her feet. The bridge was intentionally darkened to allow her crew to focus on the various consoles and readouts. Light strips outlined walkways between workstations.

“Captain on bridge.” Anselm announced, only looking up from their screen for a moment to acknowledge her. Anselm was the Comms officer, a tall and muscular Danish woman with great facial bone structure, piercing grey eyes and light yellow hair pulled back into a severe ponytail.

“Talk to me. What's it like outside?” Zey ordered, striding to the front and looking out of the wide cockpit window. As she passed by Mallory, she grabbed the ludicrous hat off her XO’s head and threw it into a corner.

“Not good.” Bosko grunted, easing the Jotunheim forward and building the speed up.

The sun was peeking over the horizon at the fjord, and by its light one could see two dozen spacecraft attempting to escape. A giant fire had erupted across the mountain range ahead of them from a crashed ship, and some other vessels were shooting at each other in confusion. The ATC came through as an unintelligible warble.

“Full ahead all aux jets, stay low until we get out of here.” Zey ordered.

“Aye, ma’am.” Bosko increased the power and the change in thrust could immediately be felt throughout the ship. The Jotunheim started to skim rapidly above the black waves of the fjord, building to a speed of roughly a hundred miles per hour.

“Anselm, tell me you’ve got hold of Tamerlane.”

“We’re still jammed, Captain. The shuttle bay stowaways are asking to talk to you though.”

“I’m a little busy. Tell everyone to hold onto something.”

“Aye aye.” Anselm pressed her earbud to activate ship-wide comms.

“Passengers, strap yourselves in for a bumpy ride. We are attempting to exit the fjords.”

---

The concourse

The people dressed as Norwegian military had neutralised the spaceport’s meagre security, and were close to crippling the ATC. Now, their quarry had finally emerged from hiding. Its FTL drive, their prize, gave off a unique energy signature that they could trace from miles away.

Together, teams smashed windows on the concourse and wheeled large armament boxes into position. Clicking open the catches, they flipped the boxes open to reveal brand new, man portable surface-to-air guided missile launchers. Spotters located the Jotunheim while others prepared to fire a salvo. Finally, against a backdrop of chaos over the water, they fired a half-dozen rockets that exploded from their tubes to spiral towards the target.