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Darth Chaltab

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21-Mar-2004
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6-Jan-2011
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Post
#193083
Topic
Rankings
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/193083/action/topic#193083
Time
Oh! My bad. I wasn't paying attention and had it in my head that Sess was higher up on the list than Warbler.

I guess It will take both him and MeBeJedi to knock Adamwan off.

The true order is:

Top 10 User Listing
15429 Bossk
10837 motti_soL
10702 PSYCHO_DAYV
8536 Shimraa
8359 Darth Chaltab
7318 GundarkHunter
6698 sean wookie
5493 ricarleite
4748 Warbler
4706 The Sessler
Post
#192751
Topic
The Things We Hate And Love Thread .
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/192751/action/topic#192751
Time
Originally posted by: theredbaron
Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
Oh dear, some of those symptoms sound like me. I can't for the life of me maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds in conversation, and my social skills are relatively lacking.


Yeah, but you *can* maintain eye contact for a few seconds or less. A lot of people from a lot of cultures are uncomfortable with eye contact, so that symptom alone doesn't mean you have Asperger's. As for lack of social skills, the fact that you said 'relatively' means that you have enough of an understanding of social skills to be able to measure yours against someone else's. Most Asperger's people (if not all, I would say) have such an impairment when it comes to social interaction, that they wouldn't even be able to tell, let alone compare their social skills with other people's.

I hope that reassures you a bit.


Oh! Thanks.
Post
#192723
Topic
Story Time!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/192723/action/topic#192723
Time


Taurin Ueiva stood motionless on the bridge of the Piercing Oblivion, gazing out at the stream of torrential red that came to be called subspace. She was still unsure why Tulva hadn’t come straight to Ten’reil, as the plan had dictated. Even the sudden police alert, the one coming from his own ship, didn’t explain her master’s strange behavior.
Tulva’s ship had been towards Tetrion to throw off any pursuing police. It would be another ten hours before the ships arrived at Ten’reil. And from there, they would make haste to Kilif, and prepare the weapon. And then, it didn’t matter what happened, because then revenge would be complete…

The blue torrent of hyperspace gave way to a starfield, and visible through the cockpit shield, were three ships. Tulva’s cruisers, and an enormous Dominion battleship with the transponder signal identifying it as the October Sky.
“What’s going on?” said Jim, confused by the sudden drop from the supraluminous torrent.
“They came out of subspace here. They couldn’t see the big Nodian vessel, and appeared right on top of it.”
“Ouch,” Jim said, understanding. When in subspace, a ship’s scanners were completely blind to anything in normal space, which is why hyperspace was the preferable method of travel. Unless you didn’t want to be tracked, because ships in hyperspace and normal space are incapable of scoping subspace, as well.
The stand off between the Sky and the Sullen Retribution came to an abrupt halt, when the other vessel, the Eyes of Vengeance’ gunboat Melancholy Disaster cut across the divide between Retribution and Sky. The gunboat opened fire on the Nodian vessel, but the ship Tulva was on changed directions, heading Galactic North.
“He is sending his followers to their deaths!” exclaimed Jim, now furious.
“They go willingly, having believed his lie,” answered Najenkur. “This tragedy will not go unpunished.”
Jim pressed some switches, ignoring the hails of the massive Nodian ship. The tracking computers predicted the destination of Sullen Retribution to be Ten’reil, the same place the rest of the Eyes’ flotilla. Jim looked up out of the cockpit. The ship was still heading north. Its engines flared red, and the Retribution disappeared into subspace.
Jim, thinking ahead, sent a priority one alert to Confederated and Imperial international affairs telling them to get a sizable battle group to Ten’reil ASAP. Meanwhile, he and Najenkur had to deal with the October Sky.

Supreme General Ben Hamine Randee Conner sat in his command chair on the bridge of the up-until-now top secret Nodian flagship October Sky. The gunboat, hopelessly out classed was pulling away, driving north, hoping, it seemed, to join her commander in retreat.
But Conner didn’t think it would be good to let them get away with attacking the most powerful vessel in the military. “Target their port lightspeed drives,” said Conner. More than 200 years of experience, most of that spent in some sort of conflict, had taught Ben that letting enemies escape usually had the nasty effect of causing them to multiply.
After a few seconds, Conner stood, stepping towards the main view screen. “Fire proton cannons,” he said, and cylindrical bursts of orange light lanced out from the ship’s main guns, impacting on the port surface of the appropriately named Melancholy Disaster. The ship slowed to a crawl, the screens showing that most of the energy was now being produced in the center of the ship. The energy there spiked, indicating the reactor going critical. And soon space was filled with a bright light, and a ball of fire as the ship broke into millions of tiny pieces.
“Excellent call, Captain,” said the ensign at his station 40 zivits away.
Then the communications officer, “Sir, I have finally made contact with the small spaceboat that entered behind the aggressors. Orders?”
“Onscreen,” said Conner. It was best to ask questions first and shoot later when the odds were stacked so highly in his favor. The screen display of space flickered and transformed into a cockpit view of a Senarian woman, an elite sword wielder, from the looks of her sliver-colored Titanium alloy armor, and in the copilot seat, sat a tall human male with very large muscles. Both had the unfortunate trait of light brown hair (well, unfortunate in the humble opinion of a certain Vurkan commander) and they both seemed as if they hadn’t slept in a long while.
“Greetings. This is the Nodian Tyman-class command ship DSF October Sky. Please identify yourselves and state your intentions leading to this incursion into Nodian Space.”
The human man started as if to answer, but the Senarian waved him aside, and turned her fair face towards Ben. “I am Lt. Colonel Najenkur Kehkz, Confederate Military. This is James Raynor, an Imperial Lieutenant army officer on the same mission as I. We are seeking the leader of a cult, the Eyes of Vengeance. His name is Jirinau Tulva, and I believe he was on the vessel that jumped out of this sector during the fighting.”
“Very well,” said Conner, nodding to his research officer to confirm their story. “Our scans do not detect anything illegal onboard you ship. Prepare to receive docking instructions.”
“Docking!” the human male blurted, growing obviously impatient. “We don’t have time for this! Tulva is getting away.”
“You have my assurances, Mr.—was it Raynor?—that this won’t take long. This is standard procedure for unauthorized incursions across the new boarder. I trust you won’t do anything to incur the wrath of my ship.”

After three hours of questions and waiting in a small, boring room, the door slid open and General Conner stepped inside. “Everything has been cleared. You are free to go, but if it is ever learned that you have revealed the existence of this warship to anyone, then Dominion assassins will hunt you down and kill both of you. Your ship has been upgraded to make up for the time you’ve lost here. Now I suggest you go before a less-friendly governor, or perhaps Dictator Reynoldikov himself, hears of this violation of the treaty.”
“I wasn’t aware that there was a treaty yet,” Jim said quietly, and Najenkur heard him think Cheery guy, right?
“Thank you, Captain,” said Naj, eager to get back to the job at hand. The pair of soldiers was lead to the docking bay where Selintou’s space-boat sat idle. The soldiers boarded the boat, and with in fifteen minutes, the pair was out of the docking bay and ready to make some 25th Century haste.
On the comm. Conner’s voice was heard saying in monotone, “I bid you farewell. Your ship is now capable of Warp Factor 15, but only for the next 45 hours. After that, the new components will self destruct, and you will likely need to replace your engine altogether. Now go.”
Jim killed the comlink and sighed. “Cheery guy,” he said, aloud this time.
Najenkur ignored the aside and engaged the souped-up engine, and suddenly, they were moving.

Really. Really. Fast.

The thing one must remember about travel in hyperspace is this: ‘Warp Factor’ is a bit of a misnomer, because there is nothing constant about warp speed ratings. Each increase in warp number was a different exponential increase in speed, WF One being approximately equal to fifteen light-years an hour. Warp Factor five equaled about 130ly an hour, and factor Ten was something like 700ly in an hour. So, when a ship is going Warp Factor fifteen, it is really going about 10 times as fast as at warp ten. That is to say, it moves at seven thousand light-years in an hour.
That's fast.
“All right,” Jim said. “We should be more than caught up with them now. Drop out of hyperspace and into subspace and see if we can find them.”
“Will do.” Najenkur manipulated some controls and the torretntial blue of hyperspace gave way to stars, and those faded into the mesmerizing red of subspace. And sure enough, about fifteen light-years behind them, was the Sullen Retribution, making Factor 5, the fastest speed possible for matter in subspace.
It was not long at all before the cult ship passed right below Jim and Naj, streaking off towards Ten’reil. And at the same time, Naj gunned it, so that their spaceboat was right above the Retribution. Now the next move was up to them.

“HOW IN THE BOWELS OF SLIN WERE THEY ABLE TO CATCH UP WITH US SO FAST?” Tulva screamed.
“I don’t know sir,” said a cautious ensign. “What should we do?”
Tulva snapped out of his anger, suddenly aware of the blind loyalty of his crew, and how dependent his followers were on his guidance. “Climb out of subspace,” Tulva ordered. “We outgun them, so let us fight them. We need not run."

“They are pulling up,” said Naj, watching the readouts as the other ship phased back into reality. Najenkur followed suit, deactivating the engine and turning the ship around. She only had one shot at what she intended to do. This would require her reflexes to be at their sharpest, so she tapped her stimulant pack, injecting a small dose of forza. Stars popped into view, replacing hyperspace, and there, about three light minutes away, was the Sullen Retribution, aimed directly at the tiny, poorly armed space-boat.
“Does this thing even have any weapons?” Jim asked.
“It has two cathode ray cannons.”
“Oh.” Jim sounded very disheartened. “We’re screwed, then?”
“Jim. You disappoint me,” Naj replied, and silently whispered the prayer Oh Lord, please let me get this right.

“Are they charging us? They’re insane. We’ll kill them!” was the general consensus on the bridge of the Sullen Retribution. Tulva stepped forward, again radiating calm.
“If I know Najenkur Kehkz,” he started, “then I believe I know exactly what she is thinking. Fire all weapons at the boat. Don’t let it through.”

“Aye, Sir,” replied the weapons officer.

Jim watched with no small amount of apprehension as the thirty-odd guns on the Retribution came alive, blasting their deadly light into space, all of it directed at the tiny boat that served as their only protection against the cold vacuum of space.
The beams got closer, but Najenkur stayed her course, not budging the ship more than a meter from its vector. Closer still, and Najenkur showed no reaction. Jim thought that the particles of destructive light were going to hit the boat, but a with a sudden violent jerk, the ship lurched left, just in before it would have been vaporized. Then Najenkur gunned it, angling directly for Tulva’s forward docking bay.
So, Najenkur was going to make it personal.
A few barely avoided shots later, and the spaceboat was just outside the forward bay. Jim, at Naj’s orders opened up with both cannons, leveling the small ships and all the people inside. Naj sat the ship down, drew her swords, and took off for the boat’s exit ramp. Jim equipped some combat armor, drew his guns and followed suit.
If he remembered correctly, this type of frigate came stock built with a failsafe that prevented the force field that held the air in from being deactivated if there were any life forms in the docking bay. This meant that Jim wouldn’t need to worry about the docking area being suddenly evacuated, except for on the off chance that the failsafe had been removed. Najenkur slipped out of the spaceboat, cautious of the possibility of instant death at the hands of unseen assailants. Raynor followed her out of the ship, guns drawn. Several fighters and dead bodies lay about, still charred and smoking from the lasers. The hatch that lead to the main corridor slid open, revealing a pair of armed Ki’lail guards, blasting as they entered. Jim and Najenkur dived for opposite cover, and Jim returned fire, tearing through the couple, leaving them sprawled on the floor dead.
As soon as they reached the threshold, however, a screen on the opposite wall flickered to life, revealing the face of Jirinau Tulva himself. “Najenkur,” he said, ignoring Jim and addressing the Senarian, stooped over in the human-sized corridor. “I think I would like to challenge you to a duel. Follow the arrows and we shall end this now. I still have honor. I promise no guns.”
Just as abruptly, the screen deactivated, replaced by a holographic arrow pointing to the soldiers’ left. And to their right, the corridor closed, leaving them no choice but to go back to the burned-out docking bay, or follow the arrow.
“I don’t like this,” Jim said. “You’ve basically lead us to our death.”
“You’re not afraid of dying, Mr. Raynor, are you?”
“I’d like to get married and have at least one child first, thank you,” Jim sounded like his voice would break again.
“I’m sorry,” Najenkur said, her voice heavy. “But the only other way to stop him would have been to ram the bridge with the boat. At least this way we still have a small chance to survive.”
“Wow. You really know how to cheer me up,” Jim said sarcastically, and with a sad smile.

By the time they reached the end of the corridor, Najenkur had pretty much decided she was going to die. Silently making peace with all their failures, the two soldiers opened the door labeled "Aft Cargo Bay" in several languages. It slid open, revealing about twenty figures, mostly Smuell, a few Ki'lail, and a Xel'Otaph. And standing in the center was Tulva, holding a Kilian battle blade, a long shaft with a blade running down the middle, attached by alloy wires. It was a very elegant version of the blade, ornate, but obviously functional. Tulva twirled it in the air for a few seconds, and addressed Najenkur.
"Shall we fight? I don't doubt for a minute that you will be unable to resist my offer." Tulva's lips twisted into a wicked smile, and Naj thought she would have Jim shoot him.
Jim, she noticed, was almost in a trance, not aware of what was going on, and Naj felt the psi of Tulva's confederates radiate out towards Jim. They were dulling him, incase his trigger fingers got any bright ideas.
"Fine," said Najenkur at length. "You'll have your dual."
"Very Well," said Tulva, raising his blade to a defensive position. Najenkur did the same with her swords. Then those with Tulva suddenly began chanting, and psi flowed around, like a whirlwind, creating a bubble, a shield keeping Najenkur and Tulva in, and the now-alert Jim out.

Jim's cognitive functions snapped back into focus as the tornado of psionic energy almost knocked him over. It became a dome-shield, with the fifteen Smuell standing as its generators. Under the dome, Najenkur and Tulva circled each other, threatening with their weapons. And suddenly, they were into it, Tulva swung high, Naj blocked and reversed low, Tulva blocked that, and Najenkur spun around faster than humanly possible and tripped Tulva. Tulva put his blade against the ground and pushed with enough force to send him flying through the air, flipping as he went. He landed with a resounding thud, and a shockwave knocked Najenkur back on her butt.
The Smuell projecting the dome-barrier started vibrating, and one more so than the rest. He looked as if his body would shake apart, and the magenta aura around him got blindingly bright. Suddenly, with a loud thunderclap, the Smuell exploded, and the glow was transferred to Tulva, who reveled in it, as if being massaged allover. Suddenly, he was stronger, faster than before.

Najenkur was having more and more trouble countering his blows. Najenkur's eyes glowed, the expression on her face something furious. "YOU FIGHT WTH DISHONOR, TULVA!!!" She yelled. "You think nothing of killing others, taking their strength and making it yours." Najenkur glowed, shaking and drawing on strength from her own mind, and from her fellow Kalatanea, the other female Senarian sword wielders, scattered across the galaxy. She let lose a flurry of blows, high, low, reverse, jab. Tulva spun, blocking the blows with incredible speed, but it was clear that the odds had been evened again. Naj leapt high, coming down with a would-be crushing blow. But Tulva rolled out of the way and came up with his staff at Naj's face, she stepped left, deflecting the blade with her left-hand sword, and spinning around, her back to Tulva's weapon, and tried to put her right-hand sword through Tulva's back. But, sensing the move, Tulva jumped forward and spun around, facing Najenkur. Two more of the Smuell exploded, giving Tulva even more strength.
The dome, however, was weakening. Jim, aware that his guns had been stolen, removed a blit from the bottom of his boot. A flash of light, and the Laigurr Mark XLVIII inside was released. One of the most powerful standard pistols ever built, the M-Fifty-eight could but a hole three inches into a ten-foot-deep solid fortisteel block.
Jim leveled the gun, which had a fifteen round clip, at the Xel'Otaph guard in the loft above the fight, dropping him, then shooting the three Ki'lail guards as well. Then he turned his attention to the remaining twelve Smuell that Tulva could use as pylons. He dropped them all, and watched Tulva's face contort in rage and other very, very negative emotions. He leveled the empty gun at Tulva, and the distraction was all Najenkur needed. With a spinning reverse strike she came and made clean cut, just as Tulva jumped away. He landed with a thud, screaming in agony, while dark magenta blood leaked out of his severed arm.
"Thank you, Jim" Najenkur said, and then collapsed.

Then Tulva's crumpled form was surrounded by a strange light, and three security officers appeared, guns leveled and Najenkur and Jim. "Don't move." One of them injected a small amount of Senarium into Tulva's neck, and suddenly, the bleeding stopped and, with considerable effort, Tulva stood up.
Jim understood something. They couldn't risk another firefight, or another swinging of the sword. Tulva was injured, and if the security officers fired at him or Najenkur, Tulva would likely be killed by one or the other. They lacked confidence now that Tulva wasn't at full capacity.
"Very good, Ms. Kehkz," said Tulva, struggling to fight his pain and weakness. An evil smile played across his face. "Now, I really must be going. I have civilizations to destroy. Revenge to exact..."
There was a loud noise, large masses of metal clanging, and suddenly the floor began to tilt, and Jim realized that the cargo bay had been ejected into space. "NO!! Daucht Bledit!!!!!" he screamed as the light reappeared, teleporting Tulva to the safety of the Sullen Retribution's bridge. Thinking fast, Jim removed a blit from his secret pocket, and activated it. He hurled it at the escaping cult leader as the blit became Jim's last-resort bomb. The LRB was giving to all imperial officers on police missions. It basically was a bomb that could be detonated if an officer got caught, or reached his target empty handed. Most of those who used it, died by it.
But not Jim...

On the bridge, the prototype teleporter worked perfectly, and Lord Tulva arrived on the command deck with no problems. But then the navigation officer pointed towards a small device that had entered with Tulva, a rectangular/ovoid box, there were a few lights on it flashing, and some terran numbers. "What is that?" he asked.
Lord Tulva twisted his head to look, struggling, supported by the SecOfs who rescued him from the cops. He grew sullen, and said gravely, "That, my friends, is death."
Then the timer read 0.

The stars seemed to flicker our briefly as Ueiva watched for her master. But she knew he would never arrive. She felt him die.

She touched a button on her control unit. "Captain," she said. "Prepare for the jump to Kilif. There has been a change in plans."
Post
#192717
Topic
Story Time!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/192717/action/topic#192717
Time
Chapter Ten: A Pirate's Life

Sarah had almost thrown-up when she first tasted the Jomanian ale that she had been offered. It was the strongest thing she had ever tried to drink. She reeled back, blinked several times and forced herself to swallow, attempting to make her reaction as covert as possible. Thankfully, the effects of the alcohol itself wouldn’t be a problem. Hammock’s men at Ithguad had given her an inhaler full of nanobots designed to prevent intoxication. So she could act drunk, and perhaps learn things from the partygoers who really were.
After thirty minutes at the party, most of the crew was too intoxicated to carry on an intelligent conversation. Sarah made her way across the room towards the captain, who was downing a longneck. She made sure she walked with a bit of a drunken swagger on top of Kiva’s characteristic limp. She slurred her fake Jomanian accent just enough to appear somewhat drunk to any of the rooms more sober observers. Cortez greeted her with his thick Hispanic accent.
“e’lo Kiva. Howze it going?”
“Fine.”
“What is it that yuu woint? Can I get you a cold-fudge Wednesday?”
“Huh?” Sarah said, just as Cortez went out, falling face first into his plate of Vordlaxian Kioberry pie.

Well. That is getting me nowhere.

Sarah, disgusted, left the mess and headed back to her quarters on the ship. As she got to her room, she ran into someone she had hoped to avoid. Korth Vaster. He had some sort of perverse infatuation with the deadly mercenary, and was constantly attempting to make moves on Kiva, according to the journal. He was a Veijan himself, wearing the custom studded armor of the Vaster clan.
The worst part was that on several occasions Kiva had relented to his desperate pleas for affection. But only when severely intoxicated.
“Hay Kiva!” said the pirate soldier in alcohol-slurred speech. “Can I come in for a minnut?”
“Go away, Korth!” Sarah slurred out, just before she realized it would be to her advantage if he didn’t think she was drunk. In her room, Sarah used the e-wardrobe to remove the dress she wore to the party and replace it with Kiva’s armor, but when she turned to lock the door, she was too late. The massive Veijan had barged in, and now embraced her, and was trying to lock his lips with hers.
Sarah was tempted to kill him, so revolted she was. She imagined John looking down from Earth and crying his eyes out.
Then she felt his hands slide from their resting places in the small of her back up to the fastener of her armor. That was the last straw.
Her knee came up, on instinct, and plowed with Sarah’s part-Veijan might into Korth’s gut. The studs on his armor had the un-expected effect of triggering Sarah’s knee reflex. Her leg kicked out, shin firmly planting into Korth’s groin. He let out a scream and a half.
“OU! What was that for?” he slurred. “I--..”
Sarah knew never to kick a Veijan man there and not follow it up with something definitive. She focused her ki and did a spinning reverse kick, just sloppy enough for any electronic witnesses to think she might still be drunk. Her foot slammed powerfully into Vaster’s chest, knocking him ten feet backwards, the door opening to avoid being broken. Quickly, Sarah crossed the room and slammed the door shut, and locked it. “I told you to go AWAY,” She screamed through the metal with totally real fury, forgetting to slur or accent what she was saying. She hoped twenty-six years of exposure New Jersey, Celistian, and Terrasevenian accents would go unnoticed.

It was several hours later when the battle alarms wailed. Sarah scrambled to her feet out of the bed, activating the quipper that would replace her nightgown with Jomanian armor. She ran down the hallway, following the signs and recalling the maps, until she found Turret number TK421. This was supposed to be the gun that Kiva used during ship-to-ship combat. Unfortunately, the turret was locked. The panel next to the entrance requested the password. Sarah racked her brain, thinking rapidly of what it might be. She entered several things.
Jomanian
Kiva
Andur
Veija

Nothing worked. Sarah was about to panic, when she suddenly had an epiphany.
P-h-o-e-n-i-x, she typed in. As the turret door opened, a violent quake rocked the Iien Blian. Bouncing off the bulkheads of the turret hatch, Sarah made it to the seat of the gun, just as Captain Cortez’s voice came over the ship’s intercom.
“Attention, all hands. We have located the signal, but we didn’t get here first. Be prepared to fight off a small Corisian flotilla.”
Confused, but not deterred, Sarah powered-up her gun and, noticing a ridiculous number of activated handicaps, began flipping switches to remove them. The restrictions… it suddenly became aware to Sarah that Kiva had been a novice at gun-turrets, and actually needed the handicaps. That didn’t matter. The same handicaps severely constricted a more skilled gunner.
The first wave of Coris fighters came in. Sarah began firing, knowing somewhere deep inside, but choosing to ignore that for now, that the fighters weren’t pirates, but actual soldiers from the Coris-Guard. Granted, Coris was governed by a corrupt and evil regime, but it didn’t feel right killing soldiers out doing their job.
Sarah felt strangely invincible in the massive ship’s gun, though she knew that in reality, a well-placed shot would snuff her life out just as quickly as any bullet or sword. Target practice got more serious when the fighters began rushing the manned turrets, and Sarah saw several explode to her left and right, and fired all-the-faster.
It was more than an hour before the shooting stopped, and an exhausted Sarah stepped out of the turret, greeted by Mishi and several other gunners. Mishi herself looked like a wreck, with her fur matted with sweat and her tail rigidly curled around her waist.
“Very nice shooting,” she said to Sarah.
“You too,” Sarah repeated with her fake Jomanian accent, wondering how in the bowels of Slin Mishi could’ve kept up with anyone else’s score and still defend the ship.
“No, Kiva. You were superior to even me today. I suppose I may still be slightly intoxicated from the night before this one. But tell me, how could one get so good so fast as yourself has?” Sarah ignored the question, hoping it was rhetorical, and slinked away, en route back to her room.

It was half way to Kiva’s room before Ishori spotted her favorite bloodthirsty killer in the hallway near the Phoenix’s quarters. Truly, doing so well since failing at Texas, Kiva now deserved her call sign more than ever. Kiva, not wanting to show emotion, fought a smile as Private Ishori greeted her.
“What’s up, Kiva?”

“Just doing what I’m paid for,” Kiva returned.
“It’s what you’re best at,” Ishori countered. Kiva nodded, reflective for a moment. The effects of failure hadn’t washed off entirely. Or maybe it was just the alcohol. Kiva had drunk enough to make a Kedilian giant plastered for hours. “Do you want to go see the spoils?” Ishori said with a cheerful smile, thankful for the antidepressants added to the ships ventilation before and after ever battle.
“Why not,” said the merc. “I need a break from lying around in my room. I’m getting bored. Can’t wait for another job.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Kiva,” said the sensible science officer. “Cortez is still not sure what to make of the reports of your death, and stuff.” The truth was, that Privaate herself had plenty of doubts about Kiva’s honesty. Some things just didn’t seem right: her sudden introspectiveness, her newfound skills at the gun turret. Even her accent didn’t seem quite right at times. But when not brooding, she acted so much like Kiva. The worst-case scenario was that Kiva was really dead, and that some sort of android or clone was taking her place. But that was ridiculous, right? The Empire didn’t have that kind of technology. Did they?

It was a fifteen-minute walk, Kiva remaining mostly silent, and Ishori doing most of the talking. The doors opened into the shuttle bay where Lyberia, along with Constance and Sleeping Bull were docked. Constance was currently unloading the cargo of the day, the things they had gotten from the raid on the Coris ships.
Mostly just money, or other things of monetary value, but the real target was just then coming down the ramp as Kiva and Ishori arrived at the shuttle.
“What is it?” Kiva asked.
“Remember that weird little machine emitting the homing signal that we picked up right before you left?”
“Um… Yeah”
“Well,” continued Ishori, “since then, we have found two others. This one makes four. We still cant’ figure out what they do, aside from that they aren’t bombs, but that is about it.”
“That is more than a little on the weird side,” said Kiva. She and Ishori walked over to the piece, and studied it. It was still cold, meaning it hadn’t been retrieved from space long before the Iien Blian got there. Sarah didn’t know what to make of the object. It was a spherical head, with large plates on five ends. The sixth end had a group of thick, rigid cables protruding from the sphere, and attached to one side of the cables was a set of triangular panels that looked like solar arrays. It was really a boring object, Sarah thought. Her attention was more acutely focused on the fighter across the bay.

A Zeven PT-OT it was, code named Phoenix-class. It also had the emblem of that fiery bird rising from its ashes painted across its port wing, erasing any doubt that it belonged to Kiva Andur. Sarah marveled at the sleek design, the quad-firing blaster cannons and wing-mounted phase batteries, and the triple-layered particle and energy shielding. Then she wondered why Zeven only sold it’s best stuff to criminals while continuing to only let the Imperial Space Navy only buy the outdated Axel and Dragon class fighters that had been so cutting-edge 200 years ago.
A sudden surge of energy caught the notice of her Veijan sensory powers, and she saw a power conduit located above her fighter activate, sending energy into the mechanism that closed the shield doors of the hanger bay. The energy felt a little funny, but nothing to be concerned about….
“Are you ready to go?” Said Ishori, snapping Sarah out of her reverie.
“Where to now?”
“I thought we’d go exercise or something. Wanna play a little Sordid Combat? One on one?”
“Sure,” Sarah agreed, and the women left, leaving Thex, Korth, and the other men to unload the cargo.

The holo-game Sordid Combat had always disgusted most of Sarah’s peers, but Sarah had taken a liking to it in the slum arcades of New Jersey City. The premise was simple. Pick from an assortment of strange otherworldly characters, and trans dimensional freaks, and beat the holographic snot out of your opponent, with an assortment of stances that caused “special attacks” to happen. Or just use your fists. Or knock them into their doom in the pit of a deathtrap. The “Sordid” part was that all the stages were full of sharp objects that caused injured players to ooze and gush holographic blood.
Of course, after several kids had been injured by over zealous opponents, the liberals and concerned parents had pushed really hard and gotten the game banned. Last Sarah heard there was also a movement to get bikes, hover-boards, and mountain climbing banned as well. They all could be dangerous to one’s health.
Ishori, disguised in the avatar of Zero Kelvin, a white ninja with the ability to freeze people solid, rushed forward, swinging low, reversing high. Sarah blocked the blows, then deflected two more sideways, and returned with a flurry of her own, all countered by the skilled Vurkan.

Sarah was using her favorite character, Wow Ming, an incredibly tall Korean man with red pants and the ability to throw fireballs and steal souls. She let loose a restrained flurry of kicks at Zero, not wanting to hurt the Vurkan on the receiving end. Her opponent backed up and through a ball of contagious ice at Sarah, who barely dodged with a twisting side flip, and countered with a great ball of fire from in the air. It missed, and Ishori’s ninja-clad hands flung another ball of ice—this one at Sarah’s landing-place—destabilizing her landing beyond repair. Just as Sarah fell, the white blur flashed across the level, planting a foot firmly into Sarah’s midsection. She audibly exhaled, unable to steady because of the slippery surface. After a long slide across the platform, Sarah found her avatar impaled on a convenient wall of spikes, oozing red, even as the Game Over appeared in front of her. Crap, she thought, I am losing my edge.
The holo-room deactivated just as Sarah felt the ship drop out of hyperspace. Unfortunately there was no time for congratulations; an immediate violent shake told Sarah that all was not well. Alarms began to wail again, this time because the Blian was under attack.
Post
#192716
Topic
Story Time!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/192716/action/topic#192716
Time
Ah! To much sappy gushy emotion! Must post some violence! (Though I also must admit that was a nice poem there, Sean Wookie)

Chapter Nine: Game of Tag

The computer buzzed a warning, ten minutes until the ship reverted into normal space. Jim glanced over at his Senarian ally. She was tall, even for her race, about 9’5”, and her massive proportions took-up most of the cockpit of the spaceboat that had been their home for almost a week. She was very beautiful, Jim thought. Still, she wasn’t attractive to him in the sense of an actual relationship. Jim preferred humans.
But she made for a good conversation, anyway.
“Well. We’re almost there.” Najenkur said. “I have never been to Haven. What should I know beforehand.”
Jim thought for a moment and said, “If all goes well, then we shouldn’t even need to land. And that is a good thing. Haven is the last planet in the galaxy any law enforcer wants to be. All we need to worry about is finding Tulva and sending his cult into the black hole which they belong.” Jim saw the Senarian’s face contort into disgust and then she looked at him sympathetically, worried, it seemed.
The five-minute warning buzzed.
“Why do you hate Tulva so much, Lt. Raynor?” She asked with obvious concern, as if she didn’t even realize she was being intrusive.
“I hate all cults.” Jim snapped at her.
“It is something more than that,” she responded. “You hate cults for a reason. I feel your hate. It is personal.”
Jim sighed. He couldn’t hide anything from her. At length, he said, “My brother, Trav. He… was in the Imperial Guard. About twelve years ago, there was an uprising of Vorth Monks. They had some new leader or something supposedly chosen by the grass spirits to lead the Vorth on galactic conquest. Somehow, they got their hands on a prototype nanobot machine that used neural-interfacing microids to control peoples’ minds. The leader—I think they called him Vox-Tue—could control remotely anyone who he infected with the nanobots..
“He started sending out his followers, and infected a huge portion of Kantapolis from Knox to Dandridge. My brother was saving lives, I know. His body was found next to the machine that built the nanobots, and Vox-Tue was dead as well, lying on top of my brother’s body. I don’ know what happened, but I know my brother saved the city. But he didn’t have to die! It wasn’t right! No one should ever be murdered in the name of God—let alone a false one…”

Jim’s normally unshakable voice and demeanor now began to break.
“Jim…” was all that Naj could say before the proximity alarm blared one last time.
They had arrived at Haven.

The red sky of subspace pealed away and revealed the largest planet that Najenkur had ever scene. It was twice the size of the Terran ancestral homeworld of Earth, but much less dense, meaning essentially the same gravity. Most of the planet was covered in the crime-infested metropolis called Apex city, and Haven was largely synonymous with the galaxy’s chief criminal element, the Yee family.
So, in a way, it was fitting that Tulva had finally been tracked to this abominable world. The space around the planet was filled with traffic, going and coming, legitimate and illicit. The homing signal was coming from the far side of the planet, so Naj engaged the deflector shields and set a course for a distant orbit around the planet, where space-traffic controllers would largely ignore her. It was nearly an hour before Tulva’s ship was spotted. Or more accurately, Tulva’s ships.
The instruments indicated at least thirty different vessels, all in a teardrop formation with the ship tagged as Tulva’s in the center. Naj adjusted their course to prevent them from flying into the middle of the flotilla.
“Whoa. Didn’t see that one coming,” said Jim, Appearantly dumbfounded.
“If there are so many ships with him,” Naj thought out loud, “then why have they not detected the homing signal yet? Unless they plan to trap us.”
“No!” Jim quickly asserted. “The signal is encrypted and piggy-backed onto their long-range transponder. Even if the signal is detected, it is only perceived as transponder static unless you have the decryption installed in your scanner.”
“Which,” Najenkur realized out loud, “is why we’ve had to rely on your little handheld device—that I could crush between two fingers, I might add—to get us this far.” Naj inhaled slowly, belying the fact she was at a loss for what to do. “Well. What now? This old boat certainly can’t fight thirty to one.”
Jim was silent for a long moment, and then said, “I think I know what to do.” He reached for his handheld tracking device, and began pushing in a complex sequence of buttons. “I can activate the failsafe. If I do this right, I can make the tracking signal a priority one “ARREST ME” signal.”
Jim’s adjustments seemed to be working, too, because just as he finished, the ships began to scatter. “That got their attention,” intoned Najenkur. A ship, the size of Tulva’s but emitting no tracking signal, detached from a much larger ship, perhaps a command ship, headed for the planet. It hadn’t made 10 kilozivits when the nearest Haven defense vessels unceremoniously fired upon it, blasting it into scrap metal, but she could clearly feel that Tulva wasn’t on it
In all the confusion, telling one ship from another would be difficult. Frantic energy patterns made tracking drive-emissions impossible, so visual scanning was the only option. Najenkur steadied her boat.
“There!” Jim shouted, pointing his finger at a smaller gunship, quickly darting in a direction that none of the other ships were. “My instincts tell me that is him. Just bringing it about to get a clear view of the dispersing fleet. Naj saw the ship with Tulva’s tracking beacon on it disappear into hyperspace call it an educated guess, Naj, but I suggest you start moving.”
Najenkur reached out with her psionic sense, probing the minds. And sure enough, Tulva was on the darting ship, plain as the stars. “Good call,” she said. Naj brought the sublight drives to full, squeezing every last kir of power from the aging engines. Only one larger ship had had joined Tulva’s, and they were almost clear of the mass of the planet, and ready to jump out of the system.
Naj brought her ship in directly behind Tulva’s, trying not to draw attention. “Get his vector as soon as he jumps,” she ordered Jim. And just as she said it, the warp drives flared up on Tulva’s frigate and he was gone.
“He is heading towards Lota.” Jim said incredulously.
“Lota?” Najenkur echoed? “What is Lota?”
Jim read-off the readouts, though Naj could tell he had prior knowledge of the world, “Lota is a Nodian border world. I hear the Dominion uses it for testing their top-secret technology. There have been some crazy stories about ships that can jump across the galaxy in ten minutes, giant tanks that can single-handedly level cities. It’s crazy stuff, but it has never been disproved.”
“So why would Tulva be jumping into Dominion space, unless that is where this weapon of his is?”
“We will just have to find out,” responded a baffled Lt. Raynor, as the starfield fell away into a blinding blue storm.

On the bridge of Tulva’s flagship Sullen Retribution, confusion reigned. The shouting continued to increase until Tulva raised his hand and issued some psionic serenity to his distraught disciples. “Will someone calmly explain to me what has gone wrong? Anyone?”
A young Smuell bridge-officer stood up and addressed Jirinau directly. “Sir, I’m not certain why, but before we jumped, the ship started emitting Ythan-beta-97, a signal designed to alert authorities to the presence of cornered pirates or other criminals. In the Empire only, of course.”
“Which would imply what?” inquired Tulva.
“It would imply, sir, that the Imperial officer who was assigned to investigate this case, the man who infiltrated your compound on Somu’e, tracked you to Haven and then tried to improvise when he realized you have an entire flotilla.”
“Wonderful.” Remarked a nearby bridge officer dryly.
Tulva exploded with rage, and without saying a word, caused the purple man’s peanut shaped-head to implode. The bridge grew eerily silent until Tulva spoke, again calm. “I want you to bring us out of subspace, and set a direct hyperspace jump to Ten’reil to rally with the rest of the fleet. I think it is time for a little bait and switch.”
But as the two ships owned by the cult climbed out of subspace, they came face to face with the largest cruiser Tulva had ever seen bearing the emblem of the New Order of Dominion.

The October Sky.
Post
#192011
Topic
Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/192011/action/topic#192011
Time
Well, for 3D fighters, Virtua Fighter and Soul Caliber can't be beat. They (and more prominently Tekken) have stolen some thunder from 2D fighting games in recent years. Pretty much the only way you have a 2D fighter do well outside the niche markets anymore is to have it on a handheld or as part of an anthology or crossover.

ON the otherhand, I've heard good thigns about the Guilty Gear series.