Starlance

The Conflict

Victor’s limo was truly something out of this world, at least as far as the country was concerned. Blessed be the infinite patience of the poor bastard who had to park the thing. Or turn it around. She half expected a brick or two at any second, but the locals’ resentment of such a display of wealth, if there was one, seemed understandably tempered by their fear of retribution. Easily two tons of armor just on the sides, definitely a few more on the bottom, with no doubt corresponding aftermarket parts in suspension and drivetrain. The limo was easily worth over a year of her wages. Maybe their combined wages, before they ended up unemployed, in a drug trade or put on ice. Viktor was indeed paying for something special she thought, already halfway through a second sandwich.

Although the market smelled wonderful, she knew better. Such street food markets were often dodgy, even in first world countries. Then the market became dodgy for a very different reason. Not to the Russian, who looked around like a fat kid in a candy store. True, some of the items on display had seen better days, but true to life’s nature of a coin, with two opposite sides, some of the stuff there looked better than what she had in Chechnya just two years ago. Katya stared at the case of diamonds a little dumbfounded for a few seconds, her brain’s operating system taking time to process what she was looking at and that it was real. Probably. “I’m just going to check something.” She reached down to grab a diamond with her left hand, taking care to keep her hand far away from the SKS’s trigger and the weapon pointing down so the Amazons didn’t get the wrong idea. Then she scratched a steel part of the weapon. The rock left a visible mark on the bolt carrier and a smile on the Russian’s face. “What this briefcase alone could be worth in the civilized world.” she muttered as she returned the diamond into the briefcase.

Yekaterina took time to wander through the market, exchanging a few words with several merchants and checking out their wares. Finishing a circle around the market, she parked herself in front of one of the stalls, letting her Russian accent off the leash. “Privet. I’m in the market for a rifle and some equipment. You have something from home that doesn’t remember Korea?” She gestured to her captured SKS. Truth be told, she wasn’t too enthusiastic about Kalashnikov pattern rifles, but Beth would’ve been right: AKs had the advantage of familiarity.
“Naturally! A paratrooper 74, from Serbia if the supplier wasn’t lying. Yours for a mere 14 diamonds!” the merchant hollered enthusiastically in an accent she couldn’t place so quickly it rivalled the rate of fire of his goods as he handed her the AKS-74.
“Guy over there is selling a solid stock one for 12.” She lazily pointed over her shoulder to one of the stalls she’d visited earlier. The fire selector moved smoothly from the wear, and the stock rattled around when stowed, but a look under the top cover showed a decent, if used, firearm.
“Bah, Paulus. Dresses up his antiques to look nice, and then it falls apart on you! Stay away, I’m warning you for your good. 13 diamonds.”
“13 and I get a sling to go with it.”
“Deal. You’ll need bullets and magazines, of course.”
“Say, five magazines and 150 rounds of 5.45 and 10 9 mil.”
“Let me see, that would make seven diamonds for the magazines and rifle bullets and one for the pistol.”
“And if I give you this on top?” She placed the Simonov on the table.
He examined the weapon briefly. “Two diamonds.”
“And one more for the bullets and stripper clips.”
“Two for the whole deal. You’ve said yourself it’s old.”
“I may not be buying from Paulus, but selling’s another thing.”
The merchant though for a second. “Gah, fine.” he relented and yelled something in his native tongue into a hut behind him. A few seconds later, a boy no older than ten came out, carrying the agreed upon items. On the way to find the others, the Russian shelled out another diamond for a chest rig that looked like Afghanistan was just the start of its long journey. One diamond left.

“So much for a unified caliber.” She laughed when she found the others and saw what they picked, taking a seat on the fountain’s edge. “And I thought living with eleven people in a three bed apartment to make rent in Moscow was a budgeting nightmare. This place, though... Here’s hoping we can get Victor to set aside some corporate hidey hole for us as part of further employment. Would be better than paying for some seedy trucker den with piss-stained mattresses. Safer, too.” she lamented the economical situation. Taking advantage of a solid surface and some time on her hands, the Russian swapped the magazines in her Gesha and began the arduous process of reloading the old one. Since neither Mr. Gryazev, Mr. Shipunov or any of the other engineers thought to include a belt clip in the loader’s design, she had to make due trying to compress the uncooperatively stiff magazine spring with a suitably shaped pebble, giving up after a minute of wasted effort, wondering whether a more or less matching loader or even a piece of sheet metal bent into the right shape was a worthwhile investment or if she should abandon it entirely and get a different backup. Where did that loader end up, anyway? She had it in Samara, and then it disappeared into some pocket dimension to join all the odd socks consumed by the laundry basket and tupperware boxes she could only find the lids of. “We could’ve nicked the map from the Caddie. Getting lost and wandering to the bad- badder side of town here of all places could be bad.”

The Conflict

When Bethan was unable to tell the cargo, Yekaterina turned to the driver sitting between her and Sean, looking like he was about to piss himself. “Hey, Kaffer boy, what’s in the back? And better cooperate, else I’ll pull over and let my mate here sort you out.” she threatened, Hayden beating the driver to the answer. “Nevermind. Does explain the guard detail though, even if it was at a discount given half of them up and vanished. Get your money back.”

The Russian was silent for most of the drive, preoccupied with navigating a truck laden with explosives through the unpredictable local traffic, all the while watching the driver out of the corner of her eye should he try to do something stupid. She only spoke up as they approached the SAMC compound, not taking her eyes off the road as she addressed the Irishman riding shotgun. “Now that you’ve had a few to cool down, I’ve been told a bit about how you two lovebirds landed in this crap. I wanted to hear both sides of the story before making my mind up about it. And on that note, can you two work together, or would it be better if you and the other guy formed a more permanent team? Though on the back of what the fuck just happened, there’s no winning in this situation, is it? Unless you can keep him in check. It worked out this time, but I can think of a hundred and one situations where such an outburst could be the end of us.” She didn’t sound accusatory, or too bothered by what Hayden did, more worried about the way it could’ve impacted them rather than the wanton slaughter.

She pulled up to the same gate where the Cadillac had been waiting for them, reasoning they hadn’t been gone long enough to change shifts and thus the guard ought to recognize them and not give them too much trouble. After announcing they had a delivery for Mr. Manar as if they were bringing pizza, they were directed to a paved rectangle just beyond the wall. She rushed to park the truck before Hayden pulled in with the caddy, hoping to avoid having to stick the truck into a confined space. As soon as they were out, a couple SMAC mercs came by and covered the truck with a tarp before leaving them alone again.

“Yeah, sorry about just going for it like this, but from the moment we found the truck there were five plans of action put forward by four people and at some point shit just stopped making any sense to me. Take it on the move, take it at the stop, check the dossier to confirm the target, try to find one that’s less defended, fucking madness. I think we need to figure out some hierarchy here, a team needs a chief, because this attempt at democracy ended up looking more like fucking anarchy.” Katya spoke up as soon as the four had left, sounding apologetic before turning to Hayden and continuing in a diplomatic tone absent of any blame or anger. “I don’t know where you’ve been and what you’ve done. But are these episodes going to be a regular occurrence, or is it out of your system now? How worried should the rest of us be about such sudden departures from coherent thought?”

The Conflict

The poor bastards talking to her hadn’t even made it halfway through explaining the route, coincidentally almost the same one they’d taken to get to the slum, when two figures ran across the road and shots rang out, all of the guards she could see turning their heads toward the source of the gunfire as the two helpful ones dropped like ripe apples, their two buddies standing around uselessly turning to fire back, not even bothering with cover. So far everything went exactly as she hoped. The Russian started backing up toward the MAN, drawing her weapon as she went and sent two rounds into the upper back of the closest gunman, the man dropping his Simonov as he did his best impression of a falling jenga tower. Two shots behind them let the tanker guards know just how bad they’ve been had, and the survivors wisely chose to make for the nearest vehicles, garbage bins or whatever would at least hide them from this unprovoked attack, not all of them making it on account of Sean, Hayden and the general confusion.

Yekaterina did the same and retreated fully behind the right side of the truck, sparing a round for each of the men Sean shot at the start of the firefight to make sure their ticket to the afterlife’s been punched as she rounded the cab. Taking care to stand beside the front wheel so nobody could get smart and shoot her in the legs, she allowed herself a second to take stock of the situation. Four rounds expended, and the fighting was contained to the left side of the truck, at least for now. She tried the passenger door with her left hand - locked. Naturally, why wouldn’t it be? She heard a call from the other side. “Wait, I’m on the other side of the truck!” She quickly yelled in response to Hayden’s warning to Sean. With the gunmen now definitely aware she was there, Yekaterina didn’t want to chance leaning out of her cover, but the gunfire had stopped for a moment. She took advantage of the brief pause in shooting to reach up and tilt one of the truck’s mirrors, allowing her to see what was on the truck’s 10 and 11 o’clock without leaving cover. What she saw was several men not resisting, one even raising his hands. She leaned out from around the truck and took aim at the nearest guard, Hayden’s challenges in English echoed by her now clean, if accented German just in case some would find it easier to understand.

And then all Hell broke loose, stuck on full auto. The stereotypical discipline and humanity of the west gone out the window. At that moment, Hayden looked more like what the average Russian thought an average American thought an average Russian was like. But for the time being at least, they were in the clear. “Everyone else alright?” She called out to the lads, turning to Hayden and speaking in Russian in a curious tone. “Are you sure you’re not from Moscow?” before switching back to English, “Try being a bit more economical with ammo though, we’re still on a tight budget.” She removed the refueling hose from their truck and screwed the filler cap back on, noting the tank was mostly full, then grabbed an SKS from one of the dead men and put a round through each of the accompanying tanker’s front tires. More good news came when she spotted Bethan, who managed to catch the fleeing driver. “Great. Let’s get him to cough up the keys and then shove him in the cab, I’ll slow down by the Caddy so one of you sitting in the bed can get off and grab it.” she called over as she finished rummaging through the dead, looking for 9 mil and 7,62x39 for the SKS before jogging over. She quickly went through the driver’s pockets, eventually finding a set of keys. “If someone follows, do what Hayden just did, seems to work.” She quipped as she went to try to get the truck up and running, ”And grab that samovar Hayden just emptied, too, no point leaving it behind. Could someone find out what’s in the back so weI know how careful we have to be with this thing?”

The Conflict

As Bethan implied, their ‘complex shit’ wasn’t hard to spot, but what was mere curiosity minutes ago now grew into concern if these two could work together and a desire to pull Sean aside for a quick chat. She was used to privately doubting things even her own superiors told her, she’d reserve judgement until after she’d heard both sides of the story. She had some experience as an interconnect between at times incompatible people in the form of enlisted and officers, sadly her tenure as platoon sergeant reached an unexpected explosive finale earlier than she would’ve liked. And at least enlisted and officers had some common wiring. These two, if even half of what Bethan just said was true… Fuck.

Having gotten out of the car, Yekaterina stood at the street corner and watched in surprise as several more Dry Trail trucks passed by, unfortunately unable to see under their tarps. Ah, well, not their problem, their target was still there. Yekaterina leaned into the driver side window so the lads on the other side of Bethan’s phone could hear her. “The way I see it, it doesn’t really bother us. Manar wanted a driver, whatever good he’s gonna be for. Car he provided had a dossier with this truck in it. Make, model, color and license plate are a match, so we grab that. Nowhere was anything mentioned about cargo. Only problem is the added heat.” ‘And if he bitches about it, then next time we ask for orders in writing.’ she thought, but didn’t say out loud, “I’m on my way back to the truck stop. Unless anyone has a better idea, let’s give the rest of the trucks a minute to get some distance from here in case they feel like going back to help their friend out. If we’re lucky, our driver will get out of our truck in the meantime. On your mark, I’ll get them to look my way so the two of you can get a jump on them and when the guards turn their backs to me and start paying attention to you two, I’ll help mop up. Surprise is on our side, even if numbers aren’t. Watch for crossfire, if I get shot by either of you, I’m haunting you. If the driver keeps his head on his shoulders and tries to make a run for it, Beth can keep track of him while we improvise. Call me if he gets underway or you want to call it off. Otherwise I’ll see you there.”

Unsure of how to conceal the mother of all knives Sean left her, the Russian left it in the car and broke into a jog, only slowing down just before the truck stop came into view, some 30 meters away, the crowd around providing good concealment. The guards had an interesting collection of weapons, and she couldn’t help but think ‘That belongs in a museum.’ She recalled joking with her friends at school that they would kill to get their hands on some of these weapons for their historical value. Oh, the irony. Their only shot at this was cleaning house and making a break for it before any reinforcements showed up. The truck was hardly bulletproof, much less capable of a swift getaway. She would’ve questioned why the Dry Trail would work with someone who kidnapped their driver and stole their truck in the first place, but who was she to question Manar’s plan? And if what he told them was just a line of bullshit to keep his cards close to his chest, it was a moot point anyway. After a few seconds, she spotted the second pair standing at a cafe. Not acknowledging them in any way, she waited for either a go or no from the boys.

If the order was given, she would approach smiling and empty-handed from the front of the truck, that way she could dive behind the engine block that actually stood a decent chance of stopping a bullet or two when the shooting started, mimicking Gunther’s Anglo-German mishmash and asking about directions to the city center. She figured that way of speech would allow her to play ignorant enough to draw the attention of more than one guard, yet not ignorant enough to be ignored and told to piss off right away.

The Conflict

@FourtyTwo
Question (well, a couple): Roughly how long is Sean's machete and does it come with a holster?

The Conflict

“You had a phone in high school? Damn, we got people from money.” Yekaterina joked as she skimmed the dossier Bethan found, “Heard drivers back home calling MANs ‘Dead dogs’ because of the logo. Their engine lineup apparently leaves a lot to be desired in the power and torque department.” She snickered, handing the dossier back and the map to Bethan riding shotgun, her latest input making Yekaterina pause. “Not an axe, better. For this situation at least. Good thing you mentioned it. I don’t know how that slipped my mind, let’s blame imperialism like we usually do.” The engine started easy enough, though her enthusiasm for the car was tempered by the realization that the air conditioning wasn’t working. And after a few minutes, she didn’t have much good to say about the seats either.

Yekaterina was mostly silent during the drive save for the occasional cursing directed at the locals and their liberal interpretation of traffic laws, Hayden explaining the slum’s inner workings as they went. “So on top of the driver, his buddies and locals sticking their noses where they don’t belong, we might also need to worry about the drug gang this guy might currently be delivering for. Great. And old guns are still guns, doesn’t really matter if it’s from yesterday, the Great Patriotic War, or the Swedish siege of Prague, a hole in your chest is still a hole in your chest,” The Russian added, wondering whether she should keep the car door unlocked in case she needed to get out quickly or locked if someone else wanted to get her out against her will. The fact that cars and corrugated metal shacks were more concealment than cover didn’t help. The shootout between SAMC and COGS drew her attention, and while she made sure to get them far away before some stray rounds found their way to them, a part of her wanted to stop and take notes on what they’d be dealing with in the next few months. Weeks? Years? Who knew? Compared to Chechnya, the fighters here seemed to be on about the same level, though she expected some to be of a higher caliber, and less concerned about staying under the radar. Less work for them. And they wouldn’t have to deal with suicide attacks here. Then she thought about it for a second and decided no to discount that possibility yet.

By the time they’d reached the Bo’lobo slum, she’d deteriorated to wishing unspeakable things upon the people either jaywalking, straight up ignoring road signs, right of way and common sense and driving into intersections without any thought or doubt, recklessly passing or having firefights in the streets and all of their families in her native Russian. Parking the sedan in the first shaded spot she found, she got out to put her bag into the passenger compartment, untangled the halligan from the bag’s other contents and passed the 75 cm, 5 kg hunk of forged steel to Sean, “I hope you went to drama club if you want to be inconspicuous hauling this around. use the pick for breaking windows. A sharp point will work a lot better than a blunt impact. Watch your pockets in the crowds, and don’t lose the hallie when things start moving.” Yekaterina walked around the passenger side as the lads disembarked to talk to Bethan. “I think you and I should swap. I don’t want to bet on the driver’s cooperation, and if we need to scram before an angry mob uses us for floor mats, that’s not a good time for the boys to learn that size does matter. I’d hate to see them smeared over a wall like marmalade because they didn’t realize you have to brake early and use the engine brake before I’ve known them long enough to decide whether that’s a good or bad thing.” Returning Hayden’s parting gesture with a grin, she drew her Gesha for a press check before returning it to its holster, leaving her jacket open for ease of access.

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

A few hours sailed by since meeting the Kanarussian transport. Avelyn spent the majority of the time in the astrogation deck, admiring the blue and orange void that lay just outside, the three inch graphene-reinforced window the only thing standing between ten seconds of agony and a grand total of 90-ish seconds of life. ‘Like at Proxima.’ a thought surfaced in the back of her mind for a brief moment before being banished. She didn’t see much point in hanging around all of the new arrivals and eavesdropping, now that they’ve spilled onto the ship like water out of a pierced barrel in bigger numbers than anticipated. After all, there was a fully sanctioned deep dive scheduled for all of them. Primarily, she wanted to find a calm place with no traffic to order her thoughts on how to approach the Captain. Ultimately, brutal honesty seemed to be the best approach. Natasha was a soldier after all, a profession where dry facts were the norm.

In the end, there were three possible outcomes she could think of. Option one: They solve the problem. An ideal, but unlikely time and fuel consuming exercise, not to mention the potential added exposure. Option two: Some other branch of Moonstrike is asked to solve the problem. Much more likely, but much more nerve-racking. Having some insight into their operations did not leave a good impression of Moonstrike as a whole. Maybe Avelyn’s expectations were too high. Maybe the rest was more well put together. Or maybe they were even worse. A grim prospect. And lastly option three: She gets booted off the ship for being a security risk. Very much not ideal, yet at the same time likely and worst of all, completely understandable.

Figuring the new arrivals have had enough time to settle down by now, she set out to find Natasha. After a minute of asking around to track her movement, she caught her going into the conference room. “Captain. Can I steal you for a minute? I bring bad news, but don’t shoot the messenger.” she tried to lighten the mood a bit, even though there was nothing funny about what she was about to say.

“Now, I’d like to preface this by saying I intended to first pull my weight and then ask for favors, but shit’s moving fast and we’re not as inconspicuous as I hoped” Avelyn took a deep breath, “Right. So, unsurprisingly, many of us still have a family out there, even if they probably think we’re dead. In my case a mother and father. And as long as the Ascendancy doesn’t know we’re working against them, all is well. The problems start once they figure out any of our identities, and although some prefered to call us by numbers, they’ll connect the dots if our names and faces land on their desks. And if they’re half as smart as they’re dickish, they’ll use anything or anyone to screw with our efforts. Now Flame has already identified himself to the Richthofen during your little episode with the 11th fleet remnant, so his old folks, if still alive, might be fucked already. I’ve seen a few black sites and what they do to people there.” She didn’t say it, but knowing her arcane arsenal, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what the Ascendancy had her doing there, “And while I can’t speak for anyone else, I can say with certainty - and please forgive my honesty - that compared to my parents, everyone else, this crew included, is and always will be second rate to me. So if I wake up one day to see that Jonas and Sola Vernal were arrested on the news.. Problem..” she paused for a moment, trying to judge how the captain was receiving this, “I was hoping Moonstrike could arrange for the aforementioned individuals to be discreetly removed from Ascendancy territory and into alien - preferably Korta or Rau’Ve - space where they’d be mostly or entirely out of harm’s way. Ideally, we would pick them up ourselves to make it easier on them, but I can’t ask that of you, given how out of the way Epsilon Theta is.” Avelyn finished, bracing for the worst.

The Conflict

Done. If I moved too far ahead, yell at me and I'll get deleting.

Also added the appearance at the end of the character entry.

The Conflict

“It may be a high price, but you’re buying premium here.” she shrugged at the bodyguards’ mention of being overpaid, lying without even batting an eye. Yes, individually they were premium goods, but it remained to be seen whether they could work well as a unit or if they’d end up looking like someone put a new GPU, old CPU and an odd number of RAM sticks into the same rig. Bethan’s plan was a solid outline, the specifics would need to be adjusted on-site depending on what they would be dealing with, but so far so good.

“Oh, we know you’re armed alright.” She took a friendly jab at Hayden as the initiator of the earlier standoff, “Two times eighteen plus one. We’re all using 9x19, yes?” Her suspicion of why she was given what she was given instead of the expected PM or APS now confirmed, unless Sean was packing something in .45 ACP. “Let’s go find the car. That’s a 1200 kilo guided missile, if we get really desperate. We can ride home in the truck.” Yekaterina stood up, eyes wandering back to her freshly poured glass, “I know hindsight is always 20/20, but that might not have been the brightest idea.” She added, pointing at the whisky before setting out to find someone who could point them to the North-West gate.

“If we find the truck on the move, it might be best to follow it and make our move once it parks or gets stuck in traffic. If he wants to run away, make him work for it. You’ve said it, they’ll be prepared for car jackers. I’m guessing he’ll be running with the cab door locked, maybe even armed, definitely a tire iron on hand. And if we want the thing mobile, then taking out the tires is out of the question. And even if we don’t care, if it’s got a central inflation system, it’d keep it going long enough to give us the slip anyway unless we put a hole the size of a tennis ball in it. With all of that, the peaceful approach does sound like the best way to go about things.” She returned to bethan’s plan along the way to the gate, “Would’ve been nice to know the make, model and color of the damn thing. How do you want to approach him? If he’s on the clock, something tells me he’s not going to be picking up hitchhikers.”

Finally reaching the gate revealed a slightly battered Cadillac Cimarron. Paintjob and body panels have seen better days, but the south African climate at least kept it rust-free at first glance. Unlocked and with keys in the driver side visor. No way it would’ve been there longer than a few hours if Victor left it like that in Samara. Rummaging through the glovebox revealed the promised phones, a quartet of veteran Nokia 5110s. Tossing her bag into the trunk, Belyayeva settled into the driver’s seat to adjust the seat and mirrors, happy to find a 5-speed manual transmission. “Right, whoever sits in the back, check your seat pockets and please tell me one of you has a road map in there. I came into town from the South, but I have no idea how to get to Bo’lobo.”

The Conflict

@FourtyTwo

Don't know if I'll have time to write today, don't wait for me if you have something.