Starlance

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

“No comms blackout and straight-up bossing them around? Oh, today will be great.” Avelyn rubbed her hands together. In an ideal case, she wouldn’t have to hurt a fly, and she would get to enjoy harmlessly screwing with people’s heads for a bit. Of course, it wouldn’t be like that. What were these ‘ideal conditions’, where could one find them and how much did a lifetime subscription cost? But if push came to shove, she was happy to have Tarak on hand to hide behind. As for Trajan… she didn’t really know what he did, a side effect of her private rule to stay out of friends’ heads, but at least she’d know after today. “Think it’s worth a try to see if we can scam some extra equipment from them while they think we’re on their side?”

Thud.

What the-?

She turned her head toward the source of the sound, quiet enough for the tiny computers in her ears to decide she’d be better off hearing it in case it was threatening, just in time to see their favorite bundle of joy recover from… headbutting the wall? Avelyn suppressed a snicker at the thought of the artificial computer in her head - arguably smarter than the biochemical one - confusing that with a distant gunshot or explosion. There was something amiss though, and Avelyn thought she knew how to fix it. With the briefing concluded, she took a minute to make her way to the galley. Mug, sugar, water, spoon and the star of the show - coffee. Instead of bothering with the kettle, she heated the life bringing mixture with Pyrokinesis on her way back to save time, tapping Amy on her shoulder once she found her. “You look like you haven’t slept much, neighbor.” She rapidly cooled the still boiling liquid to a drinkable temperature and floated the mug over to Amy, keeping it suspended in front of her with the spoon seemingly stirring its contents by itself, “Worked for a freighter pilot, can’t hurt a freedom fighter.” She joked as she fondly recalled her father basically living on coffee whenever the demand for water rose in one of the many systems serviced by the ice hauling company he worked for.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

Another engagement where all Avelyn had to do was wait it out. This rebellion stuff really was easy. When word came that the fight was over, she moved the scrap bundles aside, hoping the captain wouldn’t mind the scorch marks on the floor and went to see how the boarding team had fared. Rather well it seemed, and they even managed to convince Kherol of all people they were still with the Ascendancy, or so it seemed. Subterfuge certainly got her seal of approval.

As did the battle plan, given that it was based on it. “Oh, this is good. We can show up, say nothing, look dangerous, grab Realist and scram. Perfect spook behavior and they won’t even question any lack of uniforms or standardized equipment. And if they don’t like it, intimidation is a thing.” Avelyn rubbed her hands, seemingly looking at another easy run and - unlike the last time - well rested and dressed for the job, and she even managed to pop into Millard’s office for a checkup and to warn him of the tech in her ears and eyes to make it easier for him if it came down to piecing her back together after something went awry. “Now, how much could go wrong?” She was somewhat familiar with this sort of work, having received some training on handling dissent should some soldiers oppose the ‘righteous cause’ masse. “If the blackout fails, I don’t mind talking holes in their heads to keep them distracted and hopefully friendly while the rest of you find our tin man.” Avelyn offered, feeling confident she could string together a line of believable enough bullshit to answer any probing questions the local mooks might have, “And if not, well, been a while since I maimed a bastard who actually deserved it.” she shrugged, leaning against the wall near the door and quietly humming a happy tune.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

Upon returning to her new abode, she spied foreign thoughts in a neighboring room. Only for as long as it took to identify whom they belonged to, which wasn’t long because it was Amy. End of the corridor on the left, checks out. Going by what she could gather about the walking good mood dispenser from their brief encounter today, her mind was most likely going to be filled with pixie whistles and rainbow vomiting unicorns, so Avelyn counted herself lucky. She could’ve had Navi or Nero for neighbors. ‘Sweet’ kind of broken and ‘Holy shit’ kind of broken. Yes, this was a victory.

Avelyn left her room and crossed the corridor to Amy’s door, about to press the ‘request entry’ button when she heard voices from the inside. The beauty of youth was that you had time to spare. Returning back to her room, Avelyn lay back down, scrolling through the textbooks she had saved on her Omni-tool. Physics, history, economy… Arithmetic. She groaned. Last opened eight months ago, at the insistence of an elderly Rau’ve. The sacrifices one must make to further their understanding of their powers. Resigned to the following minutes being spent struggling to make heads or tails of the equations, she hoped whoever was currently in Amy’s room would hurry up. Wasn’t math supposed to have numbers, not letters? Not two minutes later, she fell asleep like a log.

---

The wake-up call was a harsh mixture of people’s thoughts and her Omni-tool whining through her right ear straight into her mind, indicating a received message. ’Eh… ”Bridge. Now!” Did I oversleep?’. The message fortunately identified the entire crew as recipients. Sealing her brain from others, she was up in what she humbly considered to be record time, though she had the unfair advantage of sleeping in her boots… and everything else. Ah, they were going into a fight, who cares she looked like she got chewed up by a cow. At least orders were simple enough. For now. No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, much less multiple things being done at the same time. “Of course I remember.” Avelyn tapped her temple with her finger in response to Natasha, wearing a cocky smirk, “The day I forget something, worry.”

As she was leaving the bridge, Avelyn walked past Amy, briefly touching her hand as she did to share a memory of something she thought of on the way to the bridge, unaware of Amy’s exceptional willpower. Should she get through, the shared memory itself would fade away faster than a regular human could even notice it, but it would linger long enough for Amy’s brain to remember the words it contained, effectively passing a message. “Meant to pop in yesterday and warn you that a mind reader has taken up residence in the room across the hall from yours. Normally I keep people out but I can’t do that when I’m trying to sleep, so don’t think private thoughts in the evening, and if you get fucked up nightmares I’d like to know in advance.” The memory of Avelyn’s voice cautioned in a friendly manner, “Or just say ‘Nay.’ and I’ll grab a blanket and set up in the cargo bay. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Reaching the cargo bay, Avelyn put on some music and started going through the bay in a lawnmower pattern, hurling suitable pieces of material near one of the airlocks. ’Hope Kherol didn’t pull some super precise gravimetric or magic detectors out of his arse in the year we were gone, else we might as well be sending him our coordinates.’. In a few minutes, she assembled a decent pile of scrap metal, empty boxes and even included the forklift, saving it for the last decoy. ’Eh, screw it, Most of what it can do, I can do better.’. She divided the pile into six smaller ones, seven including the forklift, and banded them together with a roll of steel straps she found. The preparations took a few minutes, and in about fifteen seconds, she had the first bundle of scrap glowing faint red, indicating about 500 degrees celsius, more or less the temperature of starship radiators under normal running conditions. “Cap, on the slim chance comms are up and you can hear this, I’ve got seven decoys and one primed to go. Expect about fifteen seconds to get one up to temp, so if you want them all going at once, now would be the time to tell me.” She was reasonably certain she could keep reheating them once they were all glowing hot if the need arose, and in the meantime busied herself with familiarizing herself with the airlock controls and trying to straighten out her jacket a little.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

There it was again. Another person staring at her in the span of a minute or two. Avelyn was used to odd stares from the war, few soldiers could comprehend the sight of a kid on a base or ship, let alone one in special forces getup, and those who didn’t care have been through such hell during the war they wouldn’t have batted an eye if a purple elephant in a frilly dress served them at the chow line. She could say that with absolute certainty, she did try it several times. But why here? Did she forget to wipe sauce off her face when she finished her lunch or something? Avelyn ran the back of her hand over her mouth and looked - no sauce. She gave Amy the same confused ’What?’ expression Phi got earlier, emphasis on the confused part.

She hung back when Amy asked for a few seconds, figuring too much information never hurt anyone. “Hope you’ve got a big notebook.” She couldn’t help noting with a chuckle when Amy mentioned talking about things weighing on them. With the plan decided, the briefing seemed to break up, folks peeling off to wander around or call dibs on quarters. Good idea, lest she be left with some utility closet underneath a staircase. Helping herself to a few of the offered biscuits and uttering a word of thanks, Avelyn left with a friendly salute in Natasha’s direction, turning into the first vacant cabin, delighted to see it was a single occupant room - Bed, table, chair, storage space, infotainment panel. In other words: Heaven. Not that she disliked company during the day, but sleeping too close to other people was hard when you could hear them thinking and dreaming. With that in mind, she backed out of the cabin and went as far down the hallway as the rooms went, throwing her bag on the bed of a vacant room and dropped her mental guards…

...nothing. Blissful silence. “Fucking finally.” The words escaped her mouth with a relieved sigh, even if the relief was only temporary, as she started examining the cabin, trying to figure out where to put all her stuff… before deciding it could stay in the bag, at least it was all in one place. She planted herself on the bed, not even caring to take her boots off. Maybe later. For now, she just lay there, enjoying the silence and listening for stray thoughts, once again breaking her private little oath not to do so in friendly company. At least she had a reason here - as soon as she’d spy someone’s thoughts in a room nearby, she’d get up and go let them know they shouldn’t think private thoughts in the evening. Maybe they’d work in shifts. She’d gladly take shitty hours if it meant the occupants of surrounding cabins would be up and about when she turned in.

But that could wait. First and foremost, there was a ship’s layout to be learned and its daily routine to be figured out. Sleeping in on the first day when the boss expects you to be up at 0600 made for a poor impression. Get up, get out there, memorize everything. Maybe meet the rest of the crew. And figure out why some people were eyeing her, before she’d have to resort to invasions of privacy.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

The short route was starting to look like the short route to purgatory, but the Captain brought up an interesting point. Stealth ship, you say? She recalled hearing brief mentions of such systems early in the war, back when they were either theoretical concepts or first prototypes to see if it was feasible at all. “How long can the Xuang- No, fuck it, it needs a nickname, how long can the ship stay hidden like this? Because I think there’s something we could do to make detection even harder… a little. Maybe.” Avelyn piped up a little uncertainly. “Among the extras I mentioned earlier is the ability to heat things up and cool things down. We could bundle up some scrap metal, heat it up to a few hundred degrees and chuck it out the door when we enter the system. A hot, fast moving and unidentified object ought to get them looking in its direction. And if we could manage to arrive undetected, we could even choose the release point so they can’t catch us when we’re doing it.” She looked to the Captain for her professional opinion, “Unless they happen to look out a window, but then we’re stuffed regardless.”

Sam raised some good points, but Avelyn also thought that those who cited friendlies already on the ground as good enough reason to take the long route were forgetting something. “OK, so we’ve got friendlies on site. So what? Show of hands, how many of you have heard ‘Ah, they have some of those mage freaks over there, they’ve got it, we can take our time.’ during the war?” She asked and raised her hand, subconsciously defaulting to her wartime squad leader for the ‘asshole who is wrong’ voice. “It’s not fun when it happens. Just because they’re there doesn’t mean they can get to Realist in time and get it out. The Circle could have splashed down in a hard-to-reach area. It could be so badly screwed up that before our lads can cut their way into the wreck, Ascendancy’s goons will arrive, wipe the floor with them and take Realist since the hard part of the job will be mostly done. The presence of friendlies should be considered exactly that: an advantage. One that we’d do well to capitalize upon. Not an excuse to slack off and potentially lose that advantage. And by ‘losing that advantage’ I mean ‘A bunch of dead rebels’.” She took great care to sound polite and not like her usual flippant self. “Doubly so if the other route is longer than the week before payday. What’s the difference between ideal travel times, anyway?”

Then she noticed Narvia crying on the other side of the room. ‘Come on, put a lid on it, new boss is watching.’ Was it hypocritical to think that not even a minute after having her own little episode? A little, probably. All things considered though, they were doing great. At least most of them were managing to keep what sort of damaged goods they all were concealed, even if it had to be obvious to anyone with a brain. And it was definitely better they got it out now than in the field.

Then the one with the cybernetic enhancements - Laurey, if her ears weren’t deceiving her, and they rarely did - moved closer to the Captain, right into her field of view. But with the surprise no longer a factor, she was just another person. ‘Don’t think about it, she’s dead. Has been for a year. Nothing to be done now, and there are worse ways to go. You’re still thinking about it, stop!’ She gave laurey a friendly wave. Best to start damage control early.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

Avelyn eagerly awaited introductions to the snake’s head, curious about the modus operandi of the new management. For starters, she’d probably be referred to by name and not service number, which was already an improvement. Although she was a little disappointed when Moonstrike One opened with something that made them sound like a telemarketer. Still, the voice behind the proverbial mask threw around more big digits, making her wonder. Either they were full of it, or much more than just a ‘simple’ rebellion. Up until now she assumed this band they were attached to was simply the upper one percent so to speak, experimental IFV and everything, but that option was starting to show more and more holes.

As the saying goes: Habit is an iron shirt. And Avelyn’s habit of springing into action immediately whenever free stuff was offered might as well have been one made of mithril. She turned her head away from the hologram that wasn’t showing anything of interest anyway just enough to see Abaddon and - after a brief pause for her brain to accept and process just what her eyes were telling it - one of the lemon bars shot across the room into her waiting open palm. She turned fully to face him to say a word of thanks… and almost dropped it when she caught a glimpse of Laurey. For a moment, it was as if her mind took a break. Avelyn forgot what she was going to say, any actual sound was drowned out by a cacophony of foreign thoughts and she had to give her head a harsh shake to get back in the present. Sure, there would be other people with implants like that, but it caught her off guard. She forced the Rau’ve ship, the ambush and the airlock out of her mind, thankful she’d turned after she retrieved the lemon bar lest it have been flung across the room like an unguided rocket. “Thanks.” She finally nodded toward Abaddon.

She turned back to the planning and took a bite of the lemon bar, catching Phi giving her an eye. Did she see her space out there for a moment? Avelyn returned the gaze and shrugged with her arms in a nonverbal version of a confused ”What?” before seizing a moment of silence to chip in. “Faster route leaves us more time to figure out our game plan once we’ve actually seen how things are at Plenty.” She shared her two cents, “And if we get to slap a bunch of capless Carl’s along the way, all the better. The short route will likely mean we’ll have the time to spare and we’d get to see each other work. It’s an opportunity to iron out any issues before the big show.” She concluded, finishing the lemon bar and extending her hand with a thumb up in the direction where Abaddon stood the last time she saw him, quite unwilling to turn again.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

“Avelyn Vernal. Gravity manipulation, mindfuckery plus some extras.” She swam out of the shoulder strap of the bag holding the fruits of her unexpected shopping trip - two sets of field gear and enough spare armor plates to last a few days of uninterrupted frontline duty - and bent down to fix a shoelace that’s come undone, leaving the bag floating in mid-air like it was completely normal before straightening up and slinging it over her shoulder again, “So let me know if you’ve got something heavy in the cargo bay that needs moving or something.” She let her mental guards down during this flourish, looking for the captain’s thoughts to parrot them back at her, “You’re correct in assuming he’s the most competent of us.” she continued, addressing Natasha’s thoughts directly while pointing at Tarak before turning to Finbarr, “She’d also like to know more about Titan.”

And with that, she’d wait to see if that would get some reaction from the new boss before leaning agaisnt a nearby wall and closing her mind to foreign thoughts again, eyeing Abaddon suspiciously, not quite sure what to make of him given his moniker. Kaisoken, Tayanen and other species without a central nervous system were significantly harder to get a read on, and although she was against probing the minds of friends and allies, the sudden lack of the option should it be needed made her cautious regardless.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

Things died down just as fast as they started to move. The plan was sound, and it worked like a charm, and now they were being showered with rewards and discounts, something that made Avelyn stir uneasily. Her poverty-induced greed was one thing, and a strong one, but this just seemed too easy, too good. And things that were too good were usually a trap. And the last one she walked into ended with spacing and capture. She shook her head to get that memory out, still too early to try and stanch that particular wound. Anyway, at least it looked like they’d have better transport to the ship itself once the low-squat APC returned, and if a day didn’t require gunfire and medical assistance, it was a good day in her book.

Since they were picking themselves up, she leaned over the table and gently shook Iris awake. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty. Sandman put you under and made off with all your candy.” She whispered, figuring that ought to do it and excused herself to see what the gun shop had in store, specifically looking for field apparel. She had a hunch the road they'd chosen had quite a few scrapes in store for them, and getting her only attire soaked with blood and full of holes sounded about as smart as it sounded appealing. While she was at it, a dozen or so spare inserts for her armor would be nice, but she expected that would bite into her current private funds something fierce and leave her with just enough to grab a meal. One meal.

The Marauders (2018)

Astrid’s ‘friend’ had apparently been at the bar for quite a while, judging by the slur she couldn’t even begin to describe that somehow made it through the translator, butchering every sibilant and forcing Astrid to do some guessing to determine what the words meant. He talked a mile a minute, starting about various places to get small spare parts and within a minute moved onto a story about a smuggler having gotten shot in a filthy alleyway and not there being a freighter blocking one of the landing pads, no-one bothering to remove it on account of the lockdown. She thanked her dumb luck for having picked probably the most sloshed guy in the room, owing any progress to this very luck, as she possessed all of the tact and charisma of a thrown brick.

At least it gave her an excuse to bring up her datapad under the pretense of taking notes of the places one could reportedly get spare parts, tooling and materials, all the while making sure there wasn’t a changeling out to snuff her lights out. It was only for the best, because deciphering the Yhei’s drunken ramblings took up all of her brainpower and Ray’s message was lost in the background noise, but the linked datapad helpfully converted the message to text and displayed it for her to digest.

She caught herself in time to not instinctively look in the bartender’s direction, instead opting to blow a generous amount of smoke up the drunkard’s ass. ”You seem to know the ins and outs of this place. Frequent patron I take it? Must be a good bartender to keep you coming to a place like this, know him well?” And with that, she set the commlink to relay the frogman’s response to Ray.

“I thought so, but apparently not. He started serving shite a few days ago, and now I’m thinking I’ll need a new watering hole, but finding one here that isn’t an absolute dive where the mortality rate hovers somewhere around the peak of Olympus Mons is like making orbit with a hot air balloon and a fire extinguisher.”

As the Yhei spoke, Astrid found a moment to utter in reply to Raymond. ”Contact or trouble?”

The Marauders (2018)

Well, after an hour of trying to get MS Teams to work, since they unexpectedly just gave up for the day, he basically went "Fuck it, tests cancelled, we'll just have big ones at the end of the semester, we're done for today, bye."

The teachers themselves are just as fucked as we are, problem is the tech not holding up (uni network breaking under the stress in the first week resulting in near-complete communications breakdown, MS Teams working about as well as anything from Microsoft) and the dean being an idiot.