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RP: 188604 [188604] 16: The Storm

Z

Zack

Not to interrupt anyone currently mid-JP. This takes place after all of the Jps currently in progress. We're also going to try treating this as an SP thread and see how it goes!

---

The City Formerly Known as Osman>

There was a storm coming.

A metaphorical storm, made up from the various decisions they Uso's crew made and also a very literal actual storm, made up of whirling dust, sand, and lightning that was tearing its way towards the city.

“HEY! WHOEVER HAS THE SHIP!” Uso called out over the all hands channel, “Bring it back towards the palace and max out the shields.”

The storm itself was still quite a distance off, but from where Uso was she could already see a bit of a stirring inside of the city. People were hanging heavy blankets on the outside of their homes to better help seal against the sand, and a large number of wagons were being moved around in the city.

“And everyone, sound off. I don't want anyone getting killed by sand-lightning. Make your way back towards the ship if you can.”

What started off as a small speck of brown on the horizon had continued to grow in size, creating a dark wall of sand moving across the muddy terrain of the planet, easily stretching up to the clouds. The wall only occasionally lit up by flashes of lightning inside.
 
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>Osman Imperial Highway en route to Capitol:

Out on the old road, Arccos was tearing ass across the rocky shoreline. Crammed into the car with Corgan and Rubi. That storm was coming in fast, and without the cover of the mountains around Old Osman... Well, they'd probably be buried, or blown into the ocean, or electrocuted.

Or some combination of those things.

"Sheriff signing in, Uso. Me, Corgi and Local Flavor are stuck outside the city." Arccos seemed to use Uso's nicknames for the two, like they were codenames. "Had to sort out some problems at the Skimmers' town, but it looks like it was a trap by a bunch of bounty hunters. They're apparently heading to the city to try and take us out somehow... We're workin' with a shine on to try and get back to the city, but might have to hunker down if the storm catches us out in the open."
 
>Former Osman Capitol

The city streets had been filled with the sound of labour for the past few days; primarily tools both powered and conventional, along with the alien chattering, shrieking and squeaking of the I'ee. Roughly one-hundred of the bug aliens' engineers had been brought down from orbit, leaving the previously crowded Utility Craft rather empty aside from a skeleton crew to keep it running.

In addition to this, the Ee'ith had brought thirty of their members down from the Treasury Vessel to serve a mixed role of overseer and mitigator, leaving only a lonely pair to watch their home ship. One of the mask-wearing bugs watched over each work group to make sure they did not upset the natives, and with good reason: There had been the occasional moment that a sticky-fingered Ithee or Ithit engineer would swipe a weapon or machine, even when in plain sight.
This total lack of regard for ownership upset the Ee'ith as much as it did the locals, who chattered frantically to their greedy relatives while offering many friendly apologies and digital smiles to the disgruntled locals.

Despite this, the I'ee worked quite well, and so long as the engineers had enough work to do, they were extremely focused. The engineers themselves rarely seemed to need to communicate amongst themselves, with most of the noise coming from the Ee'ith overseer as they interpreted the instructions and plans given to them by Uso's people.

While Sammy, like his siblings, worked out in the streets to complete the assigned work for the day, Gut-Stripe and the two unnamed Ioth doctors observed the approaching storm with apprehension.
"It is like a... wrong-storm...", Gut-Stripe would mutter uncertainly, both fascinated and frightened by the alien-looking storm. "It thunders and flashes, but it is not right. No water falls. It is wrong." The Ioth sisters had no opinions of their own regarding the storm, save that they found it terrifying, and nary a moment passed where the two weren't clinging to one another tightly.

As for Sammy, he waited anxiously with his radio communicator, tapping a claw on his LED-mask as he watched the skies darken. When he saw the natives begin to close shop around him, he took that as enough permission to retire for the day, and contacted the rest of the Ee'ith overseeing the operation. Soon, small posses of I'ee were streaming through the city, hefting tools and other equipment with them as they went to shelter in their assigned buildings.
Sammy himself went back to the palace, as Gut-Stripe had taken a liking of sorts to keeping him as an aide which, considering her temper, Sammy was glad for.
 
= Queen's Slave // Palace =

Daniels, the 4 foot midget, coming back from a run out to the new site of Cyrus after ferrying a load of supplies out. Came in and landed in the courtyard of the Palace and as ordered maxed out the shields to protect the palace and grounds. Then he set the automatics to maintain the shields as other systems were placed on stand-by. "Queen's Slave in position, Yur highness." Daniel's voice blasted over the radio. "Shields are in place and active."

Errowyn left the Queen's Slave and entered the palace. She was worried about Arccos and her little group of being stranded out on the road trying to out run a sandstorm that had built up a lot of steam. She was followed by a 4 foot Nepleslian man. She listened to over her radio to the various calls.

Looking thoughtful, she switched to a sideband and contacted the Iceberg for a weather reports on the sand storm. "Iceberg, this is Hellcat. What the deal on the Sandstorm that is approaching."

"Hellcat it looks like a doozy and a fast moving one. It should hit your location within the hour and last about three hours before the dust settles." Came the reply as Errowyn made her way through the palace and on to the main section where Uso had her office.

Errowyn nodded to the current assigned secretary to Uso as she just moved on pass her and into the Office. Daniel took off to scrounge himself something eat. "One hour before it hits. Expected to last three hours as moves through." By the way of announcing herself and she just flopped into the nearest uncluttered chair. "We should move the seat of power where it aint so open."
 
Corgan looked back at the massive storm coming in behind them. "Uh, Corgi here with Arccos and Rubi. Oh, and the dog." He said over comms. As if on cue, the dog barked. "So, it looks like diplomacy has failed with the merchants at our Algaeia refinery or whatever. We just killed a bunch of bounty hunters. If you were there, you'd have killed em too. Especially the leader. Guy practically begged me to shoot him." A short pause to catch his breath. "Like the Sheriff said, shit's about to hit the fan. They have some kind of sniper too, guy's pretty damn good for this planet. He shot the Sheriff. Lucky for me and Rubi he wasn't after the Deputies."
 
Arccos reached over and batted Corgan's communicator away from him. Wearing an expression like she'd eaten an entire shaker of salt.

"Can you not tell Empress Tyrantpants I went and got myself shot? She got all pissy about Raph getting kidnapped and beaten up, and I don't want her..." Arccos trailed off. The rest of the car could virtually see the gears grinding in her head as she steered her sentence away from its original path. "Don't want her to give me some stupid lecture about power armor safety around the flukes."
 
Queen's Slave / Palace>


Almost as if on cue, Uso's voice rang out over the all hands channel.


“You guys aren't wearing power armor are you?! If you get killed because some local mouth breather gets a lucky shot in then it is your own stupid fault for getting killed! The whole point of bringing these stupid pop-guns to the planet was that we'd be invulnerable in the power armor!”



Uso would stomp around ontop of the palace for a bit, quietly fuming inside of her power armor as she looked at the storm, then the Shield's of the Queen's slave.... then the number of people and carts outside that seemed to be gathering right outside of the shield bubble... joining them was Sammy, the large insect certainly causing a stir among the people in their heavy ponchos and coats, cinched up tightly to cover as much of their faces and bodies as possible. They all seemed to occasionally cast glances at Sammy... and nervously give him a few steps worth of space... someone in the crowd quietly mumbling, “Ok guys.... calm down... the bugs ain't our enemy....”



Uso would then come in on the all hands channel again,

“Hellcat, 8Ball, one of you two go pick up the kids. We can't have Ragna-Dog getting killed out there.”



She would then make a short rocket powered hop down towards where Sammy was,

“And someone turn off the shield for a moment. We need to let some people inside.”

She'd then switch over to directly speaking with Sammy,

“Hey, do you have all your people hidden away somewhere? This is our first major storm here and I don't want any of your people getting hurt. There's plenty of space under the shield if we need to move anyone.”


----


Fishing Harbor>

Meanwhile, Raphael, Uso's spymaster extraordinaire, and Aaron Grant, the leader of the resistance had worked out a deal with bring their rebellion to an end. However, there was still one thorn in everyone's side. Lewis Costanel, a general who had once been with the Osman Army was still willing to fight.

The two of them had agreed to investigate a Fishing harbor where shipments of black powder had been snuck in. Right outside of the large wooden structure on the water's edge men were loading barrels into the back of a covered wagon as quickly as they could.
 
Queen's Slave / Palace

8 Ball was busy going through a dossier of all the pilots under Uso's employ. He needed to find a co-pilot if he was going to take these recon missions seriously. One who knew what they were doing when it came to electronic warfare. That one requirement alone eliminated every single native pilot on this planet so 8 Balls options were pretty thin. But he needed someone to actively monitor the ship's sensors, effectively employ sensor pods, and be able to protect the ship with the electronic warfare pods when things got interesting.

The pilot set the clipboard down and began rubbing his temples as he finished up the last of the files. 'This is not looking good.' He thought to himself. 'With Hellcat out of the picture and all of the other pilots taking up squadron positions, it looks like I'm on my own...' It was a grim prospect, especially when you consider the enemy's overwhelming numbers and technological superiority to 99% of Uso's fleet. 'Guess I'll have to see what Alastair can do...' Alastair was his fighter's AI. Though not specifically designed to employ electronic warfare weapons, how hard could it be to have its targeting system be applied to the electronic weapons?

"I really need to learn how to code..." 8 Ball lamented as he heard his name come over the radio. Uso wanted him to go pick up some people stranded in the middle of nowhere. "This is 8 Ball," He said as he keyed into the coms. "Unless there is only one person out there, I don't really think my fighter is up to the challenge. Are there any transports out here I can borrow?"
 
Should 8-Ball bother to look through more than just the Pilot section of Cyrus' personnel files he'd have found one labelled clearly with the words 'Electronic- and Cyber-Warfare Specialist'. A Freespacer designated Arccos Two Three, her picture on personnel file showed a pale woman with chalk white hair. The mugshot showed her wearing yellowish tinted glasses and smoking from the stub of a cigarillo in a plastic smoke holder, it was clearly cropped from some other larger picture as he could vaguely make out people in the background. Possibly a party. Either way it blatantly wasn't a formal personnel mugshot. Her record also showed startlingly little on her past, by the looks of things it had been wiped from Ragnarok's files except for the bare essentials.

That same person crackled over the open Comms again, her voice practically oozing a thick green paste of sarcasm from every recieving comm.; "I wasn't hurt in the slightest, but I'm touched Uso. The way you're so harsh about me being so safe... You truly do care. I... I love you too."

She suddenly snapped to a more useful and informative tone, clearly directed at 8-Ball.

"Whoever you are, there's a cargo chopper if you can fly it. We can drive straight in the back."
 
>Palace

Sammy jumped in surprise when Uso landed near him, displaying a surprised, open-mouthed face on his LED mask until Uso spoke to him. "E-Empress Uso?", he squeaked, hoping he recognised the voice right. "Yes, the engineers and my siblings have found a warehouse which they have appropriated as their quarters. They will weather the storm inside."

As the shield dropped, Sammy stepped over the threshold to stand directly in front of Uso, looking up at her from his rather short vantage point. "My commander, Gut-Stripe, wants me with her and the Ioth sisters inside your palace. Is it alright if I come inside?", he asked politely, clasping his forelimbs beneath his chin in a placating gesture.
 
"As long as the instruments aren't emoticons, I can fly it. Just be sure to keep the comlink open so I can find you guys out there." 8 Ball retorted over the radio as he tossed the digital files to the side. 'Actually, I bet I could fly a ship like that. Maybe I should build one now just prove a point...' He thought cheekishly as he turned on some music. Nothing got him more pumped up than suiting up to some good music.

The intro started off nice and slow as Tiberius donned his black polymer trousers and thick, sock-like shoes. The song quickly turned into a guitar rip right as he put on his black polymer top that covered every inch of him, including his face. He then threw on a tactical harness that had dual pistol holsters that held his HHG Pistols 'Truth' and 'Justice'. The final pieces, the gloves, were added, and then all of the pieces snapped together. The cocky pilot even pulled out one of his pistols, twirling the pistol as he drew it, and struck a pose. "Time to be a hero."

Tiberius walked out of his quarters, looked around, and then quickly jumped back in. Seconds later, he reappeared with a map in hand. "Now where is the hanger at again?" He muttered under his breath as he had to stop at every junction and affirm his position before proceeding further.
 
:: Palace // Queen Slave ::

When most ships on the ground, The hanger was the open courtyard parade grounds where Queen's Slave was parked along with '5'. Her Kawarime sat parked under the canvas to keep the dust off the ship.

One of the Ragnoraks Guards would point to the Palace parade grounds where the ships were parked when the owners were at the palace.

Errowyn moved through the palace, after delivering her message, to her suite of rooms in the palace. There wasn't much she could at the moment with Daniels pretty much made Queen's Slave his ship. She let him deal with the shields to allow whomever Uso wanted within the force field.
 
Corgan stared at Arccos for a moment before nodding. "Sorry Arc, didn't think about it. She is right, but I don't think walking around in a nearly invulnerable suit makes people willing to trust me. I sure as hell wouldn't trust someone who wouldn't leave their armor." He said in response to her berating him.

One look back at the storm and he increased the car's speed. "Sure hope that chopper gets here soon, I'd hate to get stuck out in this storm. Pretty bad timing for that sniper, he won't be able to see anything in all industries that." Ragnadog snuggled close to Rubi in the back seat and whimpered, recognizing the danger of the oncoming storm. "Don't worry buddy, we're going to kick this storm's ass," Corgan yelled to the dog, trying to reassure himself as well.
 
Earlier at the base of Mt. Gleipnir:

"Get your asses moving!" Cyrus called as the newly recruited Epsilon company scrambled to get all of the equipment for the Hammer weapons systems inside the hollowed out mountain. one of the Hammer cannons had been newly installed and only needed testing, but the other cannon parts were in multiple stages of assembly. Several techs were running to and fro to both get the first weapon online and help the Epsilons get everything inside the mountain.

Cyrus walked over to Commander Stern, head of the Epsilon Company. "Stren, what's the status? That storm is going to hit soon and we will lose comms. We need to get the hell out of here." He said look down to her.

"Boss, I am working them as fast as I can." The young woman answered. Her grey eyes hiding her fear, just barely.

"Keep working Commander. Evac all non essential personnel and as many of your men as you can." Cyrus replied moving to help to men move a huge coolant system.

"Aye aye Boss." She replied as she began barking out orders. She ordered as many civis and Ragna soldiers that could fit aboard the Ragnachopper and shipped them off.

Now...

There were only 7 people left after the mass exodus from the base. Cyrus, two ID-SOLs who volunteered to stay behind and four of the techs that were working on the weapon who refused to leave. The cave was now crammed to the gills with equipment. Consols were plugged into the weapon and were running diagnostics on the first Hammer. Cyrus and the ID-SOLs were standing guard outside the cave entrance. All three were in power armor. Cyrus, in his new Hostile power armor and the ID-SOLs in there custom fit Impulse PAs.

The storm was moving in on them fast. Cyrus looked around and grimaced. "Uso, Cyrus. Storm's about to hit Mt. Gleipnir. Shit is gonna hit the fan. I am staying here with a few of my techs to keep an eye on our equipment. No way to get a transport here and back before this cluster fuck hits us." He said looking to the two ID-SOLs. "Ready to get sand blasted?" He asked them only half joking.
 
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Queen's Slave Exterior >

Uso would nod to Sammy, “Sure, make yourself at home, looks like a lot of people from the city are doing the same.”

As Uso spoke, a line of cloth covered wagons had been brought up to the Queen's slave, the horses unhitched and led away while the wagons themselves were left behind the ship, using it as a shield against the wind.

“I was actually hoping to get a chance to talk with you about the I'ee fleet. I think we have basic combat tactics figured out, we just need to co-ordinate on how to get things setup as well as figure out just how we're going to hit the NMX. Have your people been able to keep track of their ship's movements?... And those FTL drives of yours... they put out a lot of energy when you stop right? We saw the breaking radiation making a light show in orbit when you first arrived.”

Uso would avoid responding to Arccos for the time being... she owed that spacer a good talk, but she kept having to put it off for one reason or another.



Raga-Chopper / 8Ball>

The Ragna-Chopper didn't quite have a hanger just yet... There was certainly a spot on the map for a hanger, and some wood had been laid out... but no one had actually gotten around to building that hanger just yet.

“Hey there! You look lost!” One of the locals called out to 8 ball as he wandered towards the hanger. The man was in a heavy coat with goggles and had a bandanna pulled over his face... just about anyone walking around outside was dressed similarly, “Can I help ya find something?”

Him and three other people were stashing their two covered wagons next to the Ragna-Chopper.




Mt. Gleipnir>

The storm itself was only moments away from hitting the mountain, already the wind had picked up... rocks and sharp pieces of metal were being flung around outside ahead of the massive wall of sand that was darkening the sky.

Yet another wagon was being sheltered here, two men quickly unfastening their horses as the storm closed in, leaving the wagon itself at the mouth of the cave.

Uso would end up responding to Cyrus over the all hands channel, “Just keep your guys inside. We've got enough people outside of the shield as is. I don't want people getting caught outside while that storm picks up all the pieces of the spacer ship that fell off and throws them around like bullets.”
 
Mt. Gleipnir

Rubi kept huddle back in the car next to Raganadog, petting him to help ad to the reassurance that hopefully won't die in the storm. She occasionally glanced back every so often, watching it creep closer and closer to them before ducking back into her seat. "I hope your friend gets here fast, I've seen these things sink ships and widdle down armies." She yelled out, hoping to put add some more pressure on Corgan so he'd get this box moving faster.
 
Queen's Slave Exterior

"Thank you, Miss!", Sammy squeaked to Uso, apparently unaware that 'Miss' and 'Empress' were far from equal. The little I'ee toddled beneath the cover of the shield's boundaries, listening to Uso's questions with the usual bright smiley displayed on his LED mask.
"You'd probably get a better answer from Gut-Stripe, Miss.", Sammy answered, briefly displaying a regretful frown on his mask. "But I can definitely confirm your suspicions regarding our jump drives. During transit, rogue particles are swept up and carried with the ship. We must exercise caution when stopping, since the accumulated material can create a dangerous burst of energy."

Even as he prattled on, it was obvious that Sammy wanted to hurry along and hide within the safety of the palace, glancing nervously in its direction as he spoke to Uso.
 
Stormracing:

Arccos listened quite intently to Uso's reply to her goading, before her eyebrows began to rise slowly by measures. No real rant at the lack of helmets. Good, good. Arccos was getting used to handling Empress Blacklaw, maybe? She double checked that no comm in proximity was receiving before turning to Corgan.

"Well, you're right about it looking better if we don't wear helmets all the time. But Uso is kind of cowardly about this sort of thing ever since Raph got snatched that one time... Main thing is that if we're going around breaking the little Empress' rules, that we don't volunteer ourselves for reprimand. It's better to ask forgiveness than permission, but best to not have to do either."

Arccos let a few moments pass, before hearing Uso over the all hands channel again. This time about the wind picking up parts of the crashed mothership... And then she took up the communicator once more, and started talking some nonsense about truffles.

The White Lament Wreckage:

Somewhere in the wreckage; the datajockey Arccos had left inside flickered to life, the little holo-display buzzing and occasionally flickering out of form due to electrical interference from the storm. It was likely that if that storm got any closer then communications would be impossible, but for now it was worth a try.

The little holographic display showed Arccos' polysentience avatar standing on top of the little surface, although it seemed to have difficulty rendering the whole thing in great detail. The gist of it was a tall and thin female form in stark white, its proportions overstretched and alien. Three of its limbs seemed hacked off and replaced with delicate seeming but motive latticework, like baroque lace clothing that stood hollow and occupied only by phantom limbs of something maimed. By some trick of perspective, the little projection always felt like it was viewed as if from a great distance, giving off an odd impression that this wasn't a tiny projection, rather something colossal glimpsed on the horizon.

At least the voice was familiar.

"Truffleclub? Truffleclub?! The ship is in danger! There's a massive electrical anomaly incoming."
 
White Lament Wreckage

The return feed was a little strange, showing only a dense forest from an airborne view, lit only by dim blue moonlight... Scratch that, the datajockey was duct taped to Truffleclub's chest at an angle. You could see their feet, dragging sluggishly through the unruly outbreak of moss and mushrooms which had long since consumed the floor of that part of the ship. The static was already bad before the storm front due to the radiation, which made the signal look like a jittery fractal slide-puzzle now.

Ponderously, as everything the lumbering giant did, they sat down in response to the small hologram yapping at them. It took a few more lurid moments of them just staring at the strange ethereal figure, before they even figured out it was Arccos talking to them.

"...Codebreaker, friend.... yes..."

"Sand is silly problem. No starlight sails, never interia-luss drive. Not them shields." It was obviously true that the ship had a very old construction, but for such an admittance, their sluggish basso profondo voice still said it like that was a good thing. "Rolled tungsten. Self-seelin buckypaper. Micro meteor defense, is very."

"Electrics from sky... Problem, is." A lower, more unsettled tone now. "I move junkers in. I make fix for solar sail, make liddl' starlight sail, for absorb sky static, see? But no sail. No work. Planet is already take when crash. No make solar sail... Do not know else to do, is?"

"This is why is planets is very bad idea, is."
 
"I know, I know... After all this I'm going to have to see about talking with our haulers, or the I'ee about dragging the Lament back into orbit..." Arccos tapped her armored fingers on the car's dashboard, looking over her shoulder to the storm as she at wracked her brain to work out exactly what sort of systems she had to deal with... She wasn't an engineer, but she had read up on this stuff.

"Anything with buckypaper can absorb a lot of energy, so if you seal all hatches you can that connect to the outside of the ship you should be fine for physical damage. Biggest problem without that sail is the lightning striking exposed internal systems, we don't need any more damage to the electronics than we already deal with."

Arccos shot a sidelong glance at Corgan at the wheel. She was quite remarkably calm, all things considered. Then again her communicator showed she was talking to a mysterious giant mushroom who was seemingly doing engineering work on the crashed ship. The world may have just gone mad.

"The reactors had depleted all on board uranium, but those sails were still working when you hit atmo. If the ship had auxiliary starlight cells and connected capacitor banks, reactivate as many of the cells as you can, and re-route as many of the exposed electrical systems to the capacitor banks as you can. The cells should absorb some of the ambient static trails that'll let electricity arc to the ship, but those exposed cables and things are most likely to conduct a strike."

One big booming strike of lightning in the encroaching storm sounded over the comms link.

"If those get hit after that, it'll probably fry any systems directly connected to the exposed couplings; but it can charge those capacitors up and give us power to work with. If it overloads the capacitors they're at least shielded to prevent further damage."
 
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