Kinda short this one, but I didn't want to overtake the plot and prevent someone from doing stuff.
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“...you’re fucking weird, has anyone ever told you that?” Yekaterina shook her head at Hayden’s outburst as she repacked her magazines, combining two of her half-empty ones into a single full one, starting to wonder why someone sent him here or how well he could hide his state of mind in the outside world.
“Make a hole. Get a hammer, or a heavy wrench.” Kat commanded. Pulling the halligan out of her bag. Chain, steel bars, padlock. Old one, heavy. Not much slack on the chain, perfect. “Scratch the hammer, actually.” She wedged the shackle of the lock holding one of the tourist cages shut between the forks of the halligan tool and started twisting it. The first quarter turn pulled the remaining slack taught, another half turn started deforming the chain and then the weakest link snapped, the padlock flying off. With Hayden having already opened the other cage with non-Africans, she stowed the hallie away again, ignoring the locals. “We don’t have the manpower or equipment to get them out of here, not in that state, and they’re not all gonna fit into the Hilux either. Let’s grab the richest-looking one and make for scarper city.” She didn’t try to keep her voice down, unbothered by what the rescuees thought of it. She wasn’t particularly happy about leaving them to their fate, but they weren’t gonna help anyone if they couldn’t get out themselves. And dragging a dozen of injured and half-starved people, likely journalists and rich people who disappeared on a safari or when ‘taking a year off to discover themselves’ would be like tying yourself to an anchor before attempting a swimming record.
“Unless any of these guys knows something that would help us.” But what were the odds either of them even knew anything about the Hyena? A hyena, maybe. “Who are you guys, how long have you been here?” She addressed the captive that looked the least out of it, trying to muster up the cleanest English she could and then repeating it in German to make it easier on him or anyone else who wanted to answer her.
“Make a hole. Get a hammer, or a heavy wrench.” Kat commanded. Pulling the halligan out of her bag. Chain, steel bars, padlock. Old one, heavy. Not much slack on the chain, perfect. “Scratch the hammer, actually.” She wedged the shackle of the lock holding one of the tourist cages shut between the forks of the halligan tool and started twisting it. The first quarter turn pulled the remaining slack taught, another half turn started deforming the chain and then the weakest link snapped, the padlock flying off. With Hayden having already opened the other cage with non-Africans, she stowed the hallie away again, ignoring the locals. “We don’t have the manpower or equipment to get them out of here, not in that state, and they’re not all gonna fit into the Hilux either. Let’s grab the richest-looking one and make for scarper city.” She didn’t try to keep her voice down, unbothered by what the rescuees thought of it. She wasn’t particularly happy about leaving them to their fate, but they weren’t gonna help anyone if they couldn’t get out themselves. And dragging a dozen of injured and half-starved people, likely journalists and rich people who disappeared on a safari or when ‘taking a year off to discover themselves’ would be like tying yourself to an anchor before attempting a swimming record.
“Unless any of these guys knows something that would help us.” But what were the odds either of them even knew anything about the Hyena? A hyena, maybe. “Who are you guys, how long have you been here?” She addressed the captive that looked the least out of it, trying to muster up the cleanest English she could and then repeating it in German to make it easier on him or anyone else who wanted to answer her.
In
Delta Green: The PLUTO Connection, Occult Action and Intrigue
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2 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
”She may not be convinced by your word either, given that Kerchak has just stated plainly for me to hear that you two don’t know each other that well.” Vigdis said matter of factly, far from trying to throw stick under their feet, rather simply allowing them to view the situation through a human lens. ”The time it takes for an injury to heal depends heavily on the injury and where the injured part is. Some bones in my ankle were so damaged they had to replace them with metal ones, the full recovery took about sixty days because it’s a joint and because it had to be cut open. When my father broke his forearm in two places, he was back working in just thirty days. The burns on my hands took around seven days until I could move my fingers again and ten days for the facial lacerations.”
”Diseases are another matter entirely. Some pass on their own in days, others we can cure quickly. But many acquired ones take a long time to completely cure, and some of them grow resistant to medicines over time. What’s even worse, despite having made major strides in combating them, there are still numerous inborn ailments and maladies acquired not from injury or infection, but damage on such a foundational level that our bodies start growing wrong.” Cancer and radiation sickness were proving to be some of humanity’s most stubborn enemies, ones that couldn’t be fixed with ‘easy’ transplants. ”But a demonstration would certainly be in order, especially if it can halt aging as you’ve claimed. I could think of a few things to do with an extra decade or so.”
”Yes, measurements, that was something I was going to try to illustrate four days ago before it got buried in better ways to communicate. Wait here for a few minutes, and when I get back I’ll explain how long a minute is.” Vigdis excused herself and disappeared inside the Jotunheim, inwardly proud of that joke. She returned with a measuring tape, a lab scale, a box of M8 bolts, a few graduated cylinders, a measuring cup from the galley, a protractor and a contactless thermometer.
Using this scavenger hunt worth of seemingly random stuff plus the clock app on her wristpad, she proceeded to illustrate the measurement units of length, time, weight, angle and volume, putting the temperature in context of 0 and 100 degrees celsius and using the box of bolts to accurately measure out one gram and one kilogram. Abstract quantities such as energy, work, electric current and voltage would have to wait.
Lastly, she grabbed the bigger tablet and copied the second, unsolved set of mathematical operations from the shuttle bay wall onto it, this time expanding the exponentiation and roots using multiplication and division - such as “23 = 2 . 2 . 2” - and copying the Pythagorean Theorem problem. By now she was certain they knew how it worked, but might as well.
”Diseases are another matter entirely. Some pass on their own in days, others we can cure quickly. But many acquired ones take a long time to completely cure, and some of them grow resistant to medicines over time. What’s even worse, despite having made major strides in combating them, there are still numerous inborn ailments and maladies acquired not from injury or infection, but damage on such a foundational level that our bodies start growing wrong.” Cancer and radiation sickness were proving to be some of humanity’s most stubborn enemies, ones that couldn’t be fixed with ‘easy’ transplants. ”But a demonstration would certainly be in order, especially if it can halt aging as you’ve claimed. I could think of a few things to do with an extra decade or so.”
”Yes, measurements, that was something I was going to try to illustrate four days ago before it got buried in better ways to communicate. Wait here for a few minutes, and when I get back I’ll explain how long a minute is.” Vigdis excused herself and disappeared inside the Jotunheim, inwardly proud of that joke. She returned with a measuring tape, a lab scale, a box of M8 bolts, a few graduated cylinders, a measuring cup from the galley, a protractor and a contactless thermometer.
Using this scavenger hunt worth of seemingly random stuff plus the clock app on her wristpad, she proceeded to illustrate the measurement units of length, time, weight, angle and volume, putting the temperature in context of 0 and 100 degrees celsius and using the box of bolts to accurately measure out one gram and one kilogram. Abstract quantities such as energy, work, electric current and voltage would have to wait.
Lastly, she grabbed the bigger tablet and copied the second, unsolved set of mathematical operations from the shuttle bay wall onto it, this time expanding the exponentiation and roots using multiplication and division - such as “23 = 2 . 2 . 2” - and copying the Pythagorean Theorem problem. By now she was certain they knew how it worked, but might as well.
Vigdis took a few seconds to study the drawings, more general design sketches than blueprints of specific parts. It reminded her of the first semester at university where they were required to draw by hand before moving to CAD software the next semester. God, how she hated that, trying to erase one wrong line and taking two more with it and smudging the paper. ”Off the top of my head, I could show you a more complex cog shape that makes the mechanism run more smoothly and increases the contact area, thus reducing the strain on them without changing the size or material of the gears. I could also show you a type of gearbox that can merge two inputs into one output or do the opposite, though at the cost of being more complex.” Helical or herringbone gears and planetary gearboxes, the former harder to manufacture, the latter to assemble and maintain, but both with significant advantages going forward. Not only would it slightly improve Kareet's machines, it would future-proof the way machines were designed for when the time came to take full advantage of them. ”I could also explain a metalworking technique that hardens the surface of a steel piece, making it more resistant against wear while leaving the core soft and tough to make sure it won't snap under stress. You may even be doing this already without knowing it. It requires precise temperature control, but that shouldn't be a problem for a heat mage.” She continued, glancing at J'eon as this was up his alley as a blacksmith. Carbonizing worked best in an airtight furnace filled with carbon-rich gas or liquid, but charcoal could also be used and if they could make charcoal, they could get a vessel to be airtight enough.
”Of course since we have no mages, I also know at least three ways to make these work without the involvement of any mage, beast or manual labor at all.” Steam, combustion or electric engines. Maybe they shouldn't tell the locals about fossil fuels and then start buying K-A oil at cheap prices. Planet definitely had trees, had been here long enough to develop sapient life, so definitely long enough to form oil and coal and if the local life wasn't carbon-based, they would have known by now. ”We’ve also figured out a less cumbersome alternative to paddle wheels, especially better suited for rough waters.” A propeller was a lot less likely to come out of the water when the waves were high.
Shrink then came by, dropping off a piece of the sea monster they caught with Ixtaro. Vigdis briefly pondered how weird it was that a treant was preparing meat before she remembered some plants on Earth were carnivorous. Now she had to get the mental image of Shirik discussing the culinary arts with a Venus Fly Trap out of her head. ”I've just had breakfast before coming out here, I'll save it for lunch, thank you.” It wasn't a lie, but it did provide a neat way of not being rude, yet waiting for the lab to say it was safe. Another whiff under a lifted up mask made Vigdis want it to be safe even more than before.
”Of course since we have no mages, I also know at least three ways to make these work without the involvement of any mage, beast or manual labor at all.” Steam, combustion or electric engines. Maybe they shouldn't tell the locals about fossil fuels and then start buying K-A oil at cheap prices. Planet definitely had trees, had been here long enough to develop sapient life, so definitely long enough to form oil and coal and if the local life wasn't carbon-based, they would have known by now. ”We’ve also figured out a less cumbersome alternative to paddle wheels, especially better suited for rough waters.” A propeller was a lot less likely to come out of the water when the waves were high.
Shrink then came by, dropping off a piece of the sea monster they caught with Ixtaro. Vigdis briefly pondered how weird it was that a treant was preparing meat before she remembered some plants on Earth were carnivorous. Now she had to get the mental image of Shirik discussing the culinary arts with a Venus Fly Trap out of her head. ”I've just had breakfast before coming out here, I'll save it for lunch, thank you.” It wasn't a lie, but it did provide a neat way of not being rude, yet waiting for the lab to say it was safe. Another whiff under a lifted up mask made Vigdis want it to be safe even more than before.
It was then that a Glen approached. Not Silbermine, good riddance, the blacksmith that had been part of Kareet’s group. ”Hello again.” J’eon had questions too. What the heck, she was there, she had the answer and she saw no harm in sharing it, might as well. ”What, you mean the gunshot? When the Tekeri hunting party approached our team? That’s just what some of our weapons sound like. The older models, when not fitted with a suppressor. Be careful around humans who look like they might be shooting something, these older weapons are actually loud enough to damage our hearing.” She still remembered how strange shooting coilguns felt when her basic training company first went out to the range. Discounting the sonic cracks if firing supersonic, the muted ‘click’ of a coilgun was no louder than the snap of a crossbow’s bowstring compared to the loud bark of powder-driven firearms.
She stopped herself short of offering J’eon a seat by instinctive reaction before answering Kareet’s questions. ”Yes, we do wear clothing all of the time, except a few very specific occasions. Being undressed in public can land you in trouble with the Poli- the guards.”
Something in Kareet’s voice brought Vigdis back to her childhood, hearing a hint of the same awe and wonder she experienced when her father was telling her five year old self about the ships he flew and the planets he flew between. ”More than a thousand years and thousands of scholars. You may think of us as some incredibly wise people, but really all of us that you see here are standing on the shoulders of giants.” She took care to sound properly humble as she spoke of the scientists who came before her, whose labor made for the foundation and staircase that they used to reach the stars.
”Your inventions?” For a moment, a hint of admiration of people like Ixtaro or apparently Kareet, those who discovered the new rather than just taking the known and implementing it into practice as she did appeared in Vigdis’ voice. ”I’d say most of your inventions could be improved by what we know, seeing as any non-magical invention of yours has been known to us for hundreds of years by now, judging by the way your societies are organized and the sort of technology - such as weapons and armor - you’ve demonstrated and comparing to how long ago we used these things. That’s assuming magic hasn’t surpassed what we could do without it. I’ve also said already that I don’t want to do that for the benefit of one nation.” Vigdis reminded Kareet, ”But now you have me curious, what have you invented? If or when the political negotiations go horribly wrong, trying to preserve the balance of power will get thrown out the window as we turn to fully supporting whoever helps us survive and any improvements to your designs could be implemented faster if we had time to think about what you have.” She leaned forward with anticipation.
She stopped herself short of offering J’eon a seat by instinctive reaction before answering Kareet’s questions. ”Yes, we do wear clothing all of the time, except a few very specific occasions. Being undressed in public can land you in trouble with the Poli- the guards.”
Something in Kareet’s voice brought Vigdis back to her childhood, hearing a hint of the same awe and wonder she experienced when her father was telling her five year old self about the ships he flew and the planets he flew between. ”More than a thousand years and thousands of scholars. You may think of us as some incredibly wise people, but really all of us that you see here are standing on the shoulders of giants.” She took care to sound properly humble as she spoke of the scientists who came before her, whose labor made for the foundation and staircase that they used to reach the stars.
”Your inventions?” For a moment, a hint of admiration of people like Ixtaro or apparently Kareet, those who discovered the new rather than just taking the known and implementing it into practice as she did appeared in Vigdis’ voice. ”I’d say most of your inventions could be improved by what we know, seeing as any non-magical invention of yours has been known to us for hundreds of years by now, judging by the way your societies are organized and the sort of technology - such as weapons and armor - you’ve demonstrated and comparing to how long ago we used these things. That’s assuming magic hasn’t surpassed what we could do without it. I’ve also said already that I don’t want to do that for the benefit of one nation.” Vigdis reminded Kareet, ”But now you have me curious, what have you invented? If or when the political negotiations go horribly wrong, trying to preserve the balance of power will get thrown out the window as we turn to fully supporting whoever helps us survive and any improvements to your designs could be implemented faster if we had time to think about what you have.” She leaned forward with anticipation.
Vigdis would’ve been delighted to know that what she set out to do worked out. Right now, no one would know what to do with any of it and she was still being open and sharing, but some day, someone would go back to those notes, go “Hang on, what if…?” and be inspired to do something that may otherwise have taken decades or longer. Either that, or someone fucks up royally and soon she’s gonna be explaining high-carbon steel to Ascendancy blacksmiths so they can start producing arrows that can penetrate Mythandian armor with some degree of regularity. But to be honest, she wouldn’t even mind coming back here - intentionally, with sufficient supplies and with a way home! - and passing on what she knew. A university with her name on it, maybe a statue in every capital… Here and now, Vigdis, here and now. And keep the status quo.
”Matter can exist in multiple states. Take water, for example. If it’s too cold, it freezes into ice - a solid. Heat it up, and it melts into water - a liquid. Heat that up even more and it boils away into steam - a gas.“ The locals must have known this, but now hopefully what might be new information would have some link to known things, ”There’s more matter states but they’re not important now, we’ll be talking about gasses. The air we’re breathing is made up of many gasses, water vapor being one of them for example. One of these gasses is one we call ‘oxygen’. This is the one that every creature we know of needs to live, so I’m assuming it’s what you are breathing too. So any planet that has a lot of oxygen in its air is interesting because things might be living on that planet. There are eight planets in our system, only Earth has any oxygen in its air at all, it’s fairly rare.” It was an oversimplification of course, discarding star types, magnetic fields and goldilocks zones, but she was trying to stay on topic and keep it simple. She was rambling enough as it was. ”It’s also the gas that fire needs to ‘breathe’. One of the possible ones, anyway. And the air here has more oxygen in it than the air on Earth. And as I’m sure you’ve figured out yourself by now, more oxygen for a fire to burn means things combust more easily. That’s why one of the things we need from you are fabrics, most of our clothing will burn too. This even extends to our tools, even the markers we’ve been writing with were made of metal because that shouldn’t catch on fire even here.”
Explaining spectrometry would be a bit tougher than that. ”Starlight isn’t made of one color. It appears white, but it’s actually a combination of many colors making it look that way, like when a painter mixes red and blue to create purple. A rainbow? That’s the white light being split into its component colors. And when light passes through enough gas, it absorbs some of those colors. We have devices called ‘spectrometers’ that can measure the amount of each color in light. Let’s say you are the observer on Earth, my finger is kanth-Aremek and my fist is the star it circles around.” She held up a fist and then moved her finger between it and Kareet, simulating a transit. ”A small portion of the star’s light passes through the atmosphere of that planet, and it absorbs some of the light. We compare the light from the star to the light that passed through the planet’s atmosphere and since every gas absorbs a slightly different color, we can tell which gasses are in that planet’s air.”
”Matter can exist in multiple states. Take water, for example. If it’s too cold, it freezes into ice - a solid. Heat it up, and it melts into water - a liquid. Heat that up even more and it boils away into steam - a gas.“ The locals must have known this, but now hopefully what might be new information would have some link to known things, ”There’s more matter states but they’re not important now, we’ll be talking about gasses. The air we’re breathing is made up of many gasses, water vapor being one of them for example. One of these gasses is one we call ‘oxygen’. This is the one that every creature we know of needs to live, so I’m assuming it’s what you are breathing too. So any planet that has a lot of oxygen in its air is interesting because things might be living on that planet. There are eight planets in our system, only Earth has any oxygen in its air at all, it’s fairly rare.” It was an oversimplification of course, discarding star types, magnetic fields and goldilocks zones, but she was trying to stay on topic and keep it simple. She was rambling enough as it was. ”It’s also the gas that fire needs to ‘breathe’. One of the possible ones, anyway. And the air here has more oxygen in it than the air on Earth. And as I’m sure you’ve figured out yourself by now, more oxygen for a fire to burn means things combust more easily. That’s why one of the things we need from you are fabrics, most of our clothing will burn too. This even extends to our tools, even the markers we’ve been writing with were made of metal because that shouldn’t catch on fire even here.”
Explaining spectrometry would be a bit tougher than that. ”Starlight isn’t made of one color. It appears white, but it’s actually a combination of many colors making it look that way, like when a painter mixes red and blue to create purple. A rainbow? That’s the white light being split into its component colors. And when light passes through enough gas, it absorbs some of those colors. We have devices called ‘spectrometers’ that can measure the amount of each color in light. Let’s say you are the observer on Earth, my finger is kanth-Aremek and my fist is the star it circles around.” She held up a fist and then moved her finger between it and Kareet, simulating a transit. ”A small portion of the star’s light passes through the atmosphere of that planet, and it absorbs some of the light. We compare the light from the star to the light that passed through the planet’s atmosphere and since every gas absorbs a slightly different color, we can tell which gasses are in that planet’s air.”
”We did meet here today to answer your questions. Ask as they come. I won’t be able to answer all of them, thus they’ll filter themselves out. As for those you won’t think of, tomorrow is also a day, and so is the one after.” Vigdis looked toward the cookout and lifted up her mask, taking a deep breath before putting it back on. ”That smells good. We could move over if you wish. Then we could involve other people. I think Dr. Ibarra knows a lot about history, actually.” the Engineer offered.
”Spices were historically very valuable, back when the height of exploration was sailing around the world in wooden ships driven by sails. I assume Kanth-Aremek isn’t the same everywhere, Earth definitely isn’t. Spices grown where it’s hot and dry can’t be grown where it’s cold or wet and so on. And if something is hard to get, it means the people who can get it can ask a high price for it.” She elaborated, briefly considering something before continuing, ”The speed of light is, according to common understanding, the upper limit of how fast something can move. The heavier an object is and the faster it’s moving, the more effort is needed to further accelerate it. Light is massless, it doesn’t weigh anything, which is why it can achieve… well, the speed of light. You would need to expend infinite effort to get anything that weighs something to move that fast.” She judged this to be harmless information. It would be a while before the locals could use this information for anything. Frankly she was proud of getting through it without having to use the word ‘energy’ once. ”But I don’t know if there isn’t some gap in my understanding of things the ship could have taken advantage of. The reason for trying to go as fast as possible is to shorten travel times, as celestial bodies are very far apart. Even the moon or the planets you can see in the night sky with your own eyes are so far away I feel confident claiming you cannot imagine such a distance, no offense intended.”
”As for how far from Earth we are? Good question, and one we’ll have to find an answer for if we ever want to return home, so let’s unpack it.” Vigdis started counting points on her fingers, ”One, the jump from Earth to here was instantaneous. To my - limited - understanding of the jump drive, that shouldn’t have been the case. This would imply we are close. Two, this world has an oxygen-rich atmosphere. More so than Earth. If a planet capable of supporting life was close to Earth, we would’ve found it centuries ago. That leads me to believe we are very far away and that the jump drive performs better than expected. Discounting the whole ‘accidental activation’ part, that… that needs work.” Vigdis chuckled, ”If the relevant equipment is intact or can be repaired, if we can see Earth’s parent star from here and if we can learn the axes of Kanth-Aremek’s orbit around its sun, we’ll be able to calculate the distance.” And don’t think about what will happen if they can’t find Earth.
”Spices were historically very valuable, back when the height of exploration was sailing around the world in wooden ships driven by sails. I assume Kanth-Aremek isn’t the same everywhere, Earth definitely isn’t. Spices grown where it’s hot and dry can’t be grown where it’s cold or wet and so on. And if something is hard to get, it means the people who can get it can ask a high price for it.” She elaborated, briefly considering something before continuing, ”The speed of light is, according to common understanding, the upper limit of how fast something can move. The heavier an object is and the faster it’s moving, the more effort is needed to further accelerate it. Light is massless, it doesn’t weigh anything, which is why it can achieve… well, the speed of light. You would need to expend infinite effort to get anything that weighs something to move that fast.” She judged this to be harmless information. It would be a while before the locals could use this information for anything. Frankly she was proud of getting through it without having to use the word ‘energy’ once. ”But I don’t know if there isn’t some gap in my understanding of things the ship could have taken advantage of. The reason for trying to go as fast as possible is to shorten travel times, as celestial bodies are very far apart. Even the moon or the planets you can see in the night sky with your own eyes are so far away I feel confident claiming you cannot imagine such a distance, no offense intended.”
”As for how far from Earth we are? Good question, and one we’ll have to find an answer for if we ever want to return home, so let’s unpack it.” Vigdis started counting points on her fingers, ”One, the jump from Earth to here was instantaneous. To my - limited - understanding of the jump drive, that shouldn’t have been the case. This would imply we are close. Two, this world has an oxygen-rich atmosphere. More so than Earth. If a planet capable of supporting life was close to Earth, we would’ve found it centuries ago. That leads me to believe we are very far away and that the jump drive performs better than expected. Discounting the whole ‘accidental activation’ part, that… that needs work.” Vigdis chuckled, ”If the relevant equipment is intact or can be repaired, if we can see Earth’s parent star from here and if we can learn the axes of Kanth-Aremek’s orbit around its sun, we’ll be able to calculate the distance.” And don’t think about what will happen if they can’t find Earth.
Pulling into an actual ‘Mech bay again felt good. A sign of things looking up. Proper maintenance. Spare parts, even? Not having to climb damp, sketchy-ass scaffolding that had been rusting for gods know how long to get in and out of the BattleMech! Following the usual after sortie ritual of scrubbing off a crust of sweat, noting down kills, assists and ‘probables’, way too many for her liking given the nature of the fight, changing and shoving BattleROM tapes into a bag to turn over to the Colonel, Marit took a minute to stand atop Archie and take in the view of their new home before climbing down to earth to debrief with the tech crew.
“The smeg is this?” Lister asked in lieu of a greeting before she could get hers out, scooping up a bit of the leftover mud from Archie’s foot before throwing it at Rimmer, far away enough to miss, but close enough to make him flinch.
”Nice to see you too Dave, and we don’t talk about that. Find a hose.” She handed Lovett a scrap of paper with component run times and leaned against the bay’s support, ”Actually managed to stay far away from everything for most of the mission so the armor is fine, but the missile racks are almost empty. The DI computer didn’t report any flooding during the river crossings. Any news from the other teams?”
“Wyatt and the duchess arrived a while ago.” Lister informed her, the man chronically incapable of and long past even attempting to pronounce Ingrid’s last name. “No idea when the debrief is happening, not my problem. New barracks are that way. We’ve put all your stuff there, there’s even a shower.”
“The horror, right, Lister?”
“Drop dead, Rimmer. Anyway, it’s easy to find, it’s right beside a garbage mound.” He grinned at his own joke.
“Better watch out for the locals, some of them look and talk like they’ve been boning their sisters since the Star League.”
“Plus we’ve been warned about equipment theft by Cassandra.” Lovett added a more factual warning to Rimmer’s, “Don’t leave anything valuable out of sight, even nailed down, they literally have crowbars for that.”
Nodding along and dismissed by Lovett, Marit grabbed the tapes and set out to find the Mobile HQ, warming herself with the thought of vaporizing a Crimson Fists lance with the stolen - Tactically acquired! - warhead. After that, she’d see about two mission-critical things: lunch and that cockpit fridge…
“The smeg is this?” Lister asked in lieu of a greeting before she could get hers out, scooping up a bit of the leftover mud from Archie’s foot before throwing it at Rimmer, far away enough to miss, but close enough to make him flinch.
”Nice to see you too Dave, and we don’t talk about that. Find a hose.” She handed Lovett a scrap of paper with component run times and leaned against the bay’s support, ”Actually managed to stay far away from everything for most of the mission so the armor is fine, but the missile racks are almost empty. The DI computer didn’t report any flooding during the river crossings. Any news from the other teams?”
“Wyatt and the duchess arrived a while ago.” Lister informed her, the man chronically incapable of and long past even attempting to pronounce Ingrid’s last name. “No idea when the debrief is happening, not my problem. New barracks are that way. We’ve put all your stuff there, there’s even a shower.”
“The horror, right, Lister?”
“Drop dead, Rimmer. Anyway, it’s easy to find, it’s right beside a garbage mound.” He grinned at his own joke.
“Better watch out for the locals, some of them look and talk like they’ve been boning their sisters since the Star League.”
“Plus we’ve been warned about equipment theft by Cassandra.” Lovett added a more factual warning to Rimmer’s, “Don’t leave anything valuable out of sight, even nailed down, they literally have crowbars for that.”
Nodding along and dismissed by Lovett, Marit grabbed the tapes and set out to find the Mobile HQ, warming herself with the thought of vaporizing a Crimson Fists lance with the stolen - Tactically acquired! - warhead. After that, she’d see about two mission-critical things: lunch and that cockpit fridge…
As soon as Kareet asked about who the crew were, Vigdis started laughing. ”That’s a good question, because half of us aren’t even supposed to be on board.” She managed to get out before recomposing herself, ”That includes me. Many of us just took shelter on the ship when the shipyard was attacked. I haven’t had the time to familiarize myself with most people yet, except those I work with. We engineers have been busy with… You know.” She quietly pointed at several dents in the hull where bigger rocks struck it or parts have been ripped off. ”We built her well.” Vigdis said with evident pride, looking over the mass of metal that managed to survive missiles built to take down ships bigger than her and then slamming into the ground with just three dead and two major injuries. The NSIA will be happy.
”But in general, the original crew are explorers. Some former military, as the Jotunheim’s owners needed well-trained people who could work independently. The ‘stowaways’ I assume are mostly dock workers who happened to be nearby as in my case. When people are shooting at you, a mobile fortress sounds like a good place to be.” It was also fortunate a lot of the stowaways were from Norway, a country that still conscripted both genders, but that was another piece of information Vigdis judged would be best kept quiet about.
”Actual history is a very extensive topic, between more than 200 nations on Earth alone, plus all the colonies. It would probably be best to learn your writing and make the translators work with text as well as spoken word, that way we could simply give you any written records we have with us.” She tried to explain the scale, though unsure if historical notes were something they had saved in some dark recess of the computer banks. ”The ship itself was built to explore distant worlds. The ability to travel faster than light- well, it probably isn’t actually faster than light, I think that’s fundamentally impossible, but I’m a metallurgist, not a physicist. Anyway, the ability to travel to worlds other than those around our sun is new to us. A decade ago, a species that had this ability showed up at our doorstep so to speak, asking for aid and in exchange, they would explain this technology of theirs to us. Then we had ourselves a fight over who’d get to host them and benefit from this the most.“ Nope, still not proud of their warrior culture, ”Sound familiar? Naturally, those who got their hands on this knowledge started working on it right away, and we’d just finished the Jotunheim when someone attacked it. I don’t know if they wanted it for themselves, or were opposed to using this technology, it doesn’ really matter. Except something went wrong when we tried to use this propulsion method to get away from the shipyard quickly, and instead of ‘on the other side of Earth’ we ended up here. Come to think of it, humans have a record of accidentally finding something useful or interesting, land and new cultures inhabiting it included. Historically speaking the first order of business is to establish a spice trade.” Well, after violence and putting the locals’ stuff into museums, but let’s not be British.
”But in general, the original crew are explorers. Some former military, as the Jotunheim’s owners needed well-trained people who could work independently. The ‘stowaways’ I assume are mostly dock workers who happened to be nearby as in my case. When people are shooting at you, a mobile fortress sounds like a good place to be.” It was also fortunate a lot of the stowaways were from Norway, a country that still conscripted both genders, but that was another piece of information Vigdis judged would be best kept quiet about.
”Actual history is a very extensive topic, between more than 200 nations on Earth alone, plus all the colonies. It would probably be best to learn your writing and make the translators work with text as well as spoken word, that way we could simply give you any written records we have with us.” She tried to explain the scale, though unsure if historical notes were something they had saved in some dark recess of the computer banks. ”The ship itself was built to explore distant worlds. The ability to travel faster than light- well, it probably isn’t actually faster than light, I think that’s fundamentally impossible, but I’m a metallurgist, not a physicist. Anyway, the ability to travel to worlds other than those around our sun is new to us. A decade ago, a species that had this ability showed up at our doorstep so to speak, asking for aid and in exchange, they would explain this technology of theirs to us. Then we had ourselves a fight over who’d get to host them and benefit from this the most.“ Nope, still not proud of their warrior culture, ”Sound familiar? Naturally, those who got their hands on this knowledge started working on it right away, and we’d just finished the Jotunheim when someone attacked it. I don’t know if they wanted it for themselves, or were opposed to using this technology, it doesn’ really matter. Except something went wrong when we tried to use this propulsion method to get away from the shipyard quickly, and instead of ‘on the other side of Earth’ we ended up here. Come to think of it, humans have a record of accidentally finding something useful or interesting, land and new cultures inhabiting it included. Historically speaking the first order of business is to establish a spice trade.” Well, after violence and putting the locals’ stuff into museums, but let’s not be British.
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