Z
Zack
ON> Bar, Osman City Ragna-City
"I... I just don't know what I'm doin here anymore..." The man said, taking a drink from the bottle, the green swill quickly emptying out as he looked over at the alien invader that had recently taken over the city. "And I'm kinda cold..." He added, again refastening the belt that was holding his coat closed. The officer, much like his men, used to have many buttons to hold their clothing shut but those were now all in someone else's possession. "People are talkin too... You guys have been here a while and its like... when's the other shoe gonna drop you know? Are you going to eat us? Throw us into labor camps? Probe us?"
There was a bit of collective clenching throughout the room, the soldiers certainly worried that the aliens were just as bad as the stories.
"And then what's next? Everyone's too afraid to go about their normal lives now. Do we just pretend like this didn't happen? I mean... we're all gonna have to harvest more food soon to keep the city running. We could all just get cut down by that triangle in the sky...
... then we have people like you walkin around like this is no big deal!" The officer rambled, his rosey face alternating between confusion, worry, and panic as he spoke.
"I can say with some authority that my being able to walk is no big deal. Not for me." Arccos let the strange attempt at a joke hang in the air a second. Where she sat she overlooked the lot of them: Back to the wall on the small stage at the bar where a few nights before she'd been drinking with the true self imposed 'empress' of this planet. And here she was: Presiding over them, sat on an old barstool like she was on a rickety wooden throne; her sheer height dwarfing furniture constructed for the malnourished, making her look like she was sitting with the kids.
"But... I can get your worry... Surprised you haven't rioted yet. So I admire that restraint. But I can tell you now that the other foot isn't really going to hurt you that much if this all goes to plan." Her armor stood half menacingly half... Unnaturally beside her. In front of her was a half empty tumbler of the green liquor, set on the sandy wooden boards just a few inches in front of her boots.
"We'll be importing food, for us and you, since the produce here isn't efficient. A single fabricator we can drop from the sky would dwarf what you could do for us in labor camps. Aaand we can probe you from across the room with beams of light that won't even tickle, but will only do so if you're sick so we can find out what's wrong."
"So you're just gonna give us all food and fancy flying houses?" He asked, the worry not quite leaving his voice, "No one goes out of their way to help people like that for no reason. There's got to be more to it than that."
He would take another drink from his bottle of green, leaving it drained. He'd shake it over at one of the men sitting behind the bar, who would end up bringing him a new bottle.
"Around here, they say if it is too good, it isn't true."
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I am a mercenary and was paid by a woman who gave us strict instructions to take control of this entire planet by force."
Arccos stood up, turning to pull her backpack from its rest on the back of her armor. A small tug inside yielding a long cable, which let her drop it on the stage in front of her, sliding out the corner of some piece of 'alien' technology. The small makeshift holographic display on her computing node flaring to life as inside the pack glinted a small parcel full of shiny buttons, and a couple of bottles of 'alien' liquor.
"She has us here for your mineral wealth. We'll mine the planet... Consider us very well armed prospectors, to a degree. We have enough explosives to blast out the first open cut mine without having to put anyone to hard labor, to boot" The cable was slotted into her skull, behind her ear, the light over her pack taking form as a dull dusty orb; a projected image of their own world, surrounded with gleaming stars softly floating around the room. "It's not the best position for you all, but... It's far from the worst. And honestly... What we can get for spare change with what we mine here we can make your lives a whole lot better, and we do want you involved. My job is to basically coordinate the whole thing."
The man looked perplexed as she took out the cable, and then a bit startled when she slid it into her skull.
"So then, where does that leave us?" He asked, "I've got a whole room of Button-less Brigadiers here who can only do two things well; shooting a gun and standing in a line... I suppose that means we're now what? Security? Miners? Logistics?"
"Where that leaves you is wherever you want..." Arccos said blankly, the holographic view of the planet zooming in rapidly to show a closer view of the city as seen from the sky. Or at least a close approximation of it. "From my perspective, what I've done here is to drop in on one of the dumbest battles I've ever seen. You all stood in lines and shot blindly at one another through smoke. Us? Ragnarok PMC and whatever Uso is calling her kingdom? We made your wars obsolete. You don't have to fight anymore. Any single one of us can stand out and walk through your lines like you're a swarm of gnats."
Arccos stooped down to her bag, the hologram blinking out in part. In turn she walked across the room to place a bottle of Freespacer Sith in front of the apparent leader of this group. A slightly herby-flavored variety, normally sold in imitation of actual Deoradh drinks in Nepleslia. Still strong enough to make a donkey pass out drunk.
"So where that leaves you is wherever you want. You can go home and start a farm. Return to your families. Join whatever rebellion's about to crop up against us for all I care... But what I need right now is men willing to help me rebuild this city; to make sure everyone's fed; to keep people safe from criminals that'll prey on what chaos is going to happen in transition of power. I need people who can stop looters, I need people who can oversee rebuilding. People who can find those already harvesting food. Help me reach out to the learned folk of this planet."
"And I need people willing to just... Make their home better than one where you have no choice but to live a life where all you know is to stand in line and shoot another man. And my one rule? You stop hurting one another... You're better than that."
It wasn't hard to see the look of anger flash across his face, the professional soldier's pride wounded at the thought of thousands of his men... the best the city had to offer... being put out of a job by a single woman in a suit. There was no hiding that the rest of the men felt the same way, their pride having blown up along with dozens of their friends when they fruitlessly tried to charge in and take out the armored soldiers with explosives, only to be swatted down.
Some even walked out immidiately....
... but the crowd around Arccos was still quite large.
The officer infront of her considered what was infront of him... slowly reaching out and picking up the bottle of Freespacer Sith. "So.... what is this then?" He asked.
"It's called Sith. Drink named for my people's deity of alcohol, happiness and friendship." Arccos swept her arms out slightly, as if that explanation was enough, still some small frustration edged into her mind. Professional soldiers were far from what she was used to. Wounded pride at this? Really?
"And... I can get that this is a very strange situation for you. You were all soldiers, and you fought for something. But most of the soldiers I've met have fought for the day when they don't have to fight anymore. Fight so their sons and daughters don't have to. We can provide that for you... But if that's not enough, we can also provide you all the wonders of heaven... Or something fanciful like that. Do it for money if you're that kind of person. I'm not seeing you act as slave workers. I'm not interested in keeping secrets from you, and I just want this to go smooth, okay? Ask whatever you want, and I'll answer. If you don't like what you hear, you can go back to your family."
The officer would open the bottle and take a quick drink.
".... that's... no where near as awful as our stuff... Greg, here, try this..." he said, passing the bottle along. The spacer liquor was quite clean compared to the roughly made and rather grainy texture of the green swill they distilled form algae.
"You know... we can't go back to our kids empty handed." He took off his hat and set it down on the table, "So how about you tell us what jobs we'll be workin for ya? You don't seem that bad, and I suppose workin for one boss is the same as workin for another... though I suppose we should get to know you too right? What causes a space-woman to leave their abundant food and good drink to seek out a place like this?"
"Technical term for my people would be the Deoradh. I'm not human. My personal reasons for being here is that I am a member of Ragnarok PMC; a mercenary company from New Belfast. Why I do what I do? Outside of this world there is extreme abundance. But also there's folk who lay claim to that bounty without earnin' it. While you'd think that once everyone has everything they ever need, they'd all live peacefully that's... Not really the case. Just means there's some dick out there with enough weapons to kill anyone who ever looked at 'em funny."
Arccos would heave a small sigh, although she didn't quite move as if she'd actually filled lungs.
"Everything out there is owned by someone. If it weren't us coming here, you'd be met with an entire fleet of hundreds of th' 'flying triangles', who'd just dump colonists in their millions out here without givin' you folk much thought, take the whole place for 'emselves without givin' you a fair share. An' that's if yer lucky to meet the Yamataians first. They'd just turn th' planet's surface to glass if they thought you had criminals on it."
The holographic display would flash up a ghastly spectral image of a standard type misshuvurthyar, probably the thing closest to what they would expect of aliens out there.
"Their competitors would just enslave you, use this planet's women as incubators for their young, and anyone else for meat. This planet is somewhere in a colonial frontier expanse at the edge of what some'd call civilised space, so you're very lucky you haven't been hit with imperial colonists or Misshu raiders yet."
"WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT?!" The officer asked, pointing fight at the Misshuvurthyar image, "I thought all you alien types looked like us... you know, like in books and such? That looks like uh... some kinda.... flying noodle monster. You're tellin me we got to worry about those things too? We couldn't do anything against you, and now we have to deal with hundreds of things like you but different? ... Can we at least shoot them?"
The man would take a few moments to calm down ,
"I mean... well... I guess if they haven't showed up so far it isn't likely they'll show up soon anyhow right?..."
Arccos didn't reply right away. She knew that this place was roughly in the Yamataian colonial expanse, and that the Misshu raiders were somewhere. Probably the only thing saving this place was that they had no wireless communications beaming out everywhere to draw attention to would be Misshu Raiders who thought to hit the colonial areas.
"Right now our best defense is obscurity. As far as I know, Uso and Castiel are training the best of the best that you have to actually go out and keep this planet safe. I can answer whatever questions you have on them later. For now we have more immediate matters.
"...What I need, you need, right now is three types of people. People who can act as a new police force, t' stop looters an' make folk feel safe in their own homes. People who can gather information from the locals. An' people who know more about this place than I do. An' I'm saying it now that I don't want spies. This'll be more representatives of the people: Get them to go to you, then you relay who needs what an' where to me and I'll go about gettin' it. I'll need someone t' track down engineers, scientists, an' other smartasses you have so we can work with 'em to smooth over th' transitional period of fixin' up this place."
"I'll personally be workin' on convertin' local currency int' somethin' useful outside this planet, an' give you a list o' what you can buy from th' outside. I'll also be puttin' my entire share o' th' profits Ragnarok makes int' a communal fund so you can use it t' buy supplies: Medicine, drinks, new buttons, whatever you want."
Another brief moment of thought occured before he added,
"I suppose I should get started on that list huh? You gonna turn our toys and trinkets into a real defense somehow?"
"A few competant gunsmiths, some metal, and the right tools and we can convert your guns into something with punch. It'll be a while before we have infrastructure up to a point where you're flying around shooting fire in a floating triangle, mind you."
"Metal..." The man said, sounding defeated, "We've got a mine here... in the mountains... but metal gets eaten away but rust very quickly around here if you don't take care of it... and gunsmiths, we have a few of those left. We lost a lot of men at the Royal armory and the place burnt down pretty badly... but we could get it up and running in a month or so. Maybe less if you let us use that armor suit of yours?"
"Suit isn't fitted for you, and we don't have a metallic tailor around here, so I'll have to personally oversee the reconstruction... Who burnt down the armory?"
"You guys did... After the powder warehouse blew up and the city caught on fire... we didn't have the manpower to save the building full of bellows and bombs. I mean... the machinary you can't really kill but we'd need to clear off the wood of the structure first." He responded.
This would plausibly be one of the first time they'd seen Arccos come over baffled.
"What kind of powder?"
"Black..... you know...." He reached down and picked up a small bit of sand off the floor. He'd bring his hands up to the table and hisss...... before throwing his hands up in the air "BOOM!" The sand flying out like an explosion.
"It's some kind of explosive?"
"Yeah, we use it in just about everything." He responded, "ITs uh... some charcoal and some white powdery stuff we get from the dirt."
"I have never heard of it. We use something different, at the very least... And the only one of us who went in the city after we dropped went solely to the palace and back. This stuff? I've never heard of. Wouldn't have planned to blow it to begin with. It just damages a city we didn't need to burn down."
"Yeah.... welll.... what's done is done I guess." He responded.
"What about where you make those stick bombs?"
"We used to press the parts in the armory.... but I think the assembly warehouse is still a warehouse... you know 'all in one piece'." He responded, "Its a bit closer to the waters than the armory itself."
"That's something to work with, then. I'll see what we can do with the parts, and work with you to clear out the old armory. The mine I'll have to see about getting it secured then sending some of our demolitions folk to help blast it out. Metal isn't a worry, we can almost definitely do something with it to prevent corrosion. I'll need you to get me some samples of the local sand, and just round up every carpenter you can find so we can put them back to work."
"a...at gunpoint?" He asked, "Or are you going to be paying them for their work?"
"We'll be paying them. Point is they'll still need to be gathered so they can be offered work. Don't threaten them, think of this as something like... I don't know. How do you spread news around here?"
"There are meeting places and the like for the more social kinds of news... but usually if you want to know fast you have to head to a field office for the military. We got a few of those still standing but the army isn't what it used to be.... though I hear you guys are already trying to form it back together.
"So you don't even have a printing press or something?"
"Small ones... you try and keep machines like that working with all this dust around!.... Hell we got the biggest and best presses on the planet, run em as much as possible too! You want us to make a book about you guys?" He asked.
"I was thinking more about handbills, pass them out to spread news. We can give you books about us relatively easy, if you really want them." Arccos shrugged a little flippantly.
"YES!" he shouted, forgetting entirely about the handbills "I want whatever space-books you can give me!"
"What sort of topics?" Arccos asked, holding up her datajockey as if to take notes.
"ANYTHING!" He shouted, slamming his hands on the table... backing off a bit when he realized just how over-eager he must have sounded "Ahem... I mean, you have SPACE books. Anything in a space-book has got to be better than what we got here right? I bet you've got crazy-good gardening tips, and all kinds of exotic plants."
Arccos would squint slightly, clearly scrutinising the man for some indication of intent, "...Do you want space drug plants? Is that it?"
"Well... " He thought about it for a moment, "I mean, I just wanted to try some of your space-food... space-drugs sound... dangerous. Like... we can't handle your power armor. What makes you think we'd handle THAT well?"
"Don't... I mean. We could get you armor, it just has to be fitted for you. But it's also very expensive. You're just coming off as very... Uh... Enthusiastic about the books. Food I can understand. 'exotic plants' just comes off as a euphemism."
"Look, we might not have all that crazy armor... but we aren't all entirely stupid. You've shown us that your drinks and your weapons are a lot better... its safe to assume you also have better food right? And, it ain't like space-plants wouldn't be exotic... Then there's medicine.. and all that fancy space-technology you were talking about earlier."
He looked at the ground a bit, "We can't go back to how things were... but we might as well see whats ahead right?"
Arccos gave a short laugh. Looking... Maybe a little proud, "What's your name?"
"Josward Braith" He replied, "... and uh... what do we call you?"
"My designation is Arccos Two Three 52-9683-7587." Arccos rattled off the number, knowing full well that it was practically meaningless to these people, "You can simply call me Arccos, or Arc."
"Five...two...dash... nine..." He quietly mouthed, trying to remember her name as she rattled it off. Breathing a sigh of releif when she shortened it up, "OH ok.... Arc it is!"
"It's a pleasure to be working with you." Arccos gave a small inclination of her head, before turning to the rest of the crowd "And all of you. It's a gift to work with so many willing to make their home among the stars a better place."
"I... I just don't know what I'm doin here anymore..." The man said, taking a drink from the bottle, the green swill quickly emptying out as he looked over at the alien invader that had recently taken over the city. "And I'm kinda cold..." He added, again refastening the belt that was holding his coat closed. The officer, much like his men, used to have many buttons to hold their clothing shut but those were now all in someone else's possession. "People are talkin too... You guys have been here a while and its like... when's the other shoe gonna drop you know? Are you going to eat us? Throw us into labor camps? Probe us?"
There was a bit of collective clenching throughout the room, the soldiers certainly worried that the aliens were just as bad as the stories.
"And then what's next? Everyone's too afraid to go about their normal lives now. Do we just pretend like this didn't happen? I mean... we're all gonna have to harvest more food soon to keep the city running. We could all just get cut down by that triangle in the sky...
... then we have people like you walkin around like this is no big deal!" The officer rambled, his rosey face alternating between confusion, worry, and panic as he spoke.
"I can say with some authority that my being able to walk is no big deal. Not for me." Arccos let the strange attempt at a joke hang in the air a second. Where she sat she overlooked the lot of them: Back to the wall on the small stage at the bar where a few nights before she'd been drinking with the true self imposed 'empress' of this planet. And here she was: Presiding over them, sat on an old barstool like she was on a rickety wooden throne; her sheer height dwarfing furniture constructed for the malnourished, making her look like she was sitting with the kids.
"But... I can get your worry... Surprised you haven't rioted yet. So I admire that restraint. But I can tell you now that the other foot isn't really going to hurt you that much if this all goes to plan." Her armor stood half menacingly half... Unnaturally beside her. In front of her was a half empty tumbler of the green liquor, set on the sandy wooden boards just a few inches in front of her boots.
"We'll be importing food, for us and you, since the produce here isn't efficient. A single fabricator we can drop from the sky would dwarf what you could do for us in labor camps. Aaand we can probe you from across the room with beams of light that won't even tickle, but will only do so if you're sick so we can find out what's wrong."
"So you're just gonna give us all food and fancy flying houses?" He asked, the worry not quite leaving his voice, "No one goes out of their way to help people like that for no reason. There's got to be more to it than that."
He would take another drink from his bottle of green, leaving it drained. He'd shake it over at one of the men sitting behind the bar, who would end up bringing him a new bottle.
"Around here, they say if it is too good, it isn't true."
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I am a mercenary and was paid by a woman who gave us strict instructions to take control of this entire planet by force."
Arccos stood up, turning to pull her backpack from its rest on the back of her armor. A small tug inside yielding a long cable, which let her drop it on the stage in front of her, sliding out the corner of some piece of 'alien' technology. The small makeshift holographic display on her computing node flaring to life as inside the pack glinted a small parcel full of shiny buttons, and a couple of bottles of 'alien' liquor.
"She has us here for your mineral wealth. We'll mine the planet... Consider us very well armed prospectors, to a degree. We have enough explosives to blast out the first open cut mine without having to put anyone to hard labor, to boot" The cable was slotted into her skull, behind her ear, the light over her pack taking form as a dull dusty orb; a projected image of their own world, surrounded with gleaming stars softly floating around the room. "It's not the best position for you all, but... It's far from the worst. And honestly... What we can get for spare change with what we mine here we can make your lives a whole lot better, and we do want you involved. My job is to basically coordinate the whole thing."
The man looked perplexed as she took out the cable, and then a bit startled when she slid it into her skull.
"So then, where does that leave us?" He asked, "I've got a whole room of Button-less Brigadiers here who can only do two things well; shooting a gun and standing in a line... I suppose that means we're now what? Security? Miners? Logistics?"
"Where that leaves you is wherever you want..." Arccos said blankly, the holographic view of the planet zooming in rapidly to show a closer view of the city as seen from the sky. Or at least a close approximation of it. "From my perspective, what I've done here is to drop in on one of the dumbest battles I've ever seen. You all stood in lines and shot blindly at one another through smoke. Us? Ragnarok PMC and whatever Uso is calling her kingdom? We made your wars obsolete. You don't have to fight anymore. Any single one of us can stand out and walk through your lines like you're a swarm of gnats."
Arccos stooped down to her bag, the hologram blinking out in part. In turn she walked across the room to place a bottle of Freespacer Sith in front of the apparent leader of this group. A slightly herby-flavored variety, normally sold in imitation of actual Deoradh drinks in Nepleslia. Still strong enough to make a donkey pass out drunk.
"So where that leaves you is wherever you want. You can go home and start a farm. Return to your families. Join whatever rebellion's about to crop up against us for all I care... But what I need right now is men willing to help me rebuild this city; to make sure everyone's fed; to keep people safe from criminals that'll prey on what chaos is going to happen in transition of power. I need people who can stop looters, I need people who can oversee rebuilding. People who can find those already harvesting food. Help me reach out to the learned folk of this planet."
"And I need people willing to just... Make their home better than one where you have no choice but to live a life where all you know is to stand in line and shoot another man. And my one rule? You stop hurting one another... You're better than that."
It wasn't hard to see the look of anger flash across his face, the professional soldier's pride wounded at the thought of thousands of his men... the best the city had to offer... being put out of a job by a single woman in a suit. There was no hiding that the rest of the men felt the same way, their pride having blown up along with dozens of their friends when they fruitlessly tried to charge in and take out the armored soldiers with explosives, only to be swatted down.
Some even walked out immidiately....
... but the crowd around Arccos was still quite large.
The officer infront of her considered what was infront of him... slowly reaching out and picking up the bottle of Freespacer Sith. "So.... what is this then?" He asked.
"It's called Sith. Drink named for my people's deity of alcohol, happiness and friendship." Arccos swept her arms out slightly, as if that explanation was enough, still some small frustration edged into her mind. Professional soldiers were far from what she was used to. Wounded pride at this? Really?
"And... I can get that this is a very strange situation for you. You were all soldiers, and you fought for something. But most of the soldiers I've met have fought for the day when they don't have to fight anymore. Fight so their sons and daughters don't have to. We can provide that for you... But if that's not enough, we can also provide you all the wonders of heaven... Or something fanciful like that. Do it for money if you're that kind of person. I'm not seeing you act as slave workers. I'm not interested in keeping secrets from you, and I just want this to go smooth, okay? Ask whatever you want, and I'll answer. If you don't like what you hear, you can go back to your family."
The officer would open the bottle and take a quick drink.
".... that's... no where near as awful as our stuff... Greg, here, try this..." he said, passing the bottle along. The spacer liquor was quite clean compared to the roughly made and rather grainy texture of the green swill they distilled form algae.
"You know... we can't go back to our kids empty handed." He took off his hat and set it down on the table, "So how about you tell us what jobs we'll be workin for ya? You don't seem that bad, and I suppose workin for one boss is the same as workin for another... though I suppose we should get to know you too right? What causes a space-woman to leave their abundant food and good drink to seek out a place like this?"
"Technical term for my people would be the Deoradh. I'm not human. My personal reasons for being here is that I am a member of Ragnarok PMC; a mercenary company from New Belfast. Why I do what I do? Outside of this world there is extreme abundance. But also there's folk who lay claim to that bounty without earnin' it. While you'd think that once everyone has everything they ever need, they'd all live peacefully that's... Not really the case. Just means there's some dick out there with enough weapons to kill anyone who ever looked at 'em funny."
Arccos would heave a small sigh, although she didn't quite move as if she'd actually filled lungs.
"Everything out there is owned by someone. If it weren't us coming here, you'd be met with an entire fleet of hundreds of th' 'flying triangles', who'd just dump colonists in their millions out here without givin' you folk much thought, take the whole place for 'emselves without givin' you a fair share. An' that's if yer lucky to meet the Yamataians first. They'd just turn th' planet's surface to glass if they thought you had criminals on it."
The holographic display would flash up a ghastly spectral image of a standard type misshuvurthyar, probably the thing closest to what they would expect of aliens out there.
"Their competitors would just enslave you, use this planet's women as incubators for their young, and anyone else for meat. This planet is somewhere in a colonial frontier expanse at the edge of what some'd call civilised space, so you're very lucky you haven't been hit with imperial colonists or Misshu raiders yet."
"WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT?!" The officer asked, pointing fight at the Misshuvurthyar image, "I thought all you alien types looked like us... you know, like in books and such? That looks like uh... some kinda.... flying noodle monster. You're tellin me we got to worry about those things too? We couldn't do anything against you, and now we have to deal with hundreds of things like you but different? ... Can we at least shoot them?"
The man would take a few moments to calm down ,
"I mean... well... I guess if they haven't showed up so far it isn't likely they'll show up soon anyhow right?..."
Arccos didn't reply right away. She knew that this place was roughly in the Yamataian colonial expanse, and that the Misshu raiders were somewhere. Probably the only thing saving this place was that they had no wireless communications beaming out everywhere to draw attention to would be Misshu Raiders who thought to hit the colonial areas.
"Right now our best defense is obscurity. As far as I know, Uso and Castiel are training the best of the best that you have to actually go out and keep this planet safe. I can answer whatever questions you have on them later. For now we have more immediate matters.
"...What I need, you need, right now is three types of people. People who can act as a new police force, t' stop looters an' make folk feel safe in their own homes. People who can gather information from the locals. An' people who know more about this place than I do. An' I'm saying it now that I don't want spies. This'll be more representatives of the people: Get them to go to you, then you relay who needs what an' where to me and I'll go about gettin' it. I'll need someone t' track down engineers, scientists, an' other smartasses you have so we can work with 'em to smooth over th' transitional period of fixin' up this place."
"I'll personally be workin' on convertin' local currency int' somethin' useful outside this planet, an' give you a list o' what you can buy from th' outside. I'll also be puttin' my entire share o' th' profits Ragnarok makes int' a communal fund so you can use it t' buy supplies: Medicine, drinks, new buttons, whatever you want."
Another brief moment of thought occured before he added,
"I suppose I should get started on that list huh? You gonna turn our toys and trinkets into a real defense somehow?"
"A few competant gunsmiths, some metal, and the right tools and we can convert your guns into something with punch. It'll be a while before we have infrastructure up to a point where you're flying around shooting fire in a floating triangle, mind you."
"Metal..." The man said, sounding defeated, "We've got a mine here... in the mountains... but metal gets eaten away but rust very quickly around here if you don't take care of it... and gunsmiths, we have a few of those left. We lost a lot of men at the Royal armory and the place burnt down pretty badly... but we could get it up and running in a month or so. Maybe less if you let us use that armor suit of yours?"
"Suit isn't fitted for you, and we don't have a metallic tailor around here, so I'll have to personally oversee the reconstruction... Who burnt down the armory?"
"You guys did... After the powder warehouse blew up and the city caught on fire... we didn't have the manpower to save the building full of bellows and bombs. I mean... the machinary you can't really kill but we'd need to clear off the wood of the structure first." He responded.
This would plausibly be one of the first time they'd seen Arccos come over baffled.
"What kind of powder?"
"Black..... you know...." He reached down and picked up a small bit of sand off the floor. He'd bring his hands up to the table and hisss...... before throwing his hands up in the air "BOOM!" The sand flying out like an explosion.
"It's some kind of explosive?"
"Yeah, we use it in just about everything." He responded, "ITs uh... some charcoal and some white powdery stuff we get from the dirt."
"I have never heard of it. We use something different, at the very least... And the only one of us who went in the city after we dropped went solely to the palace and back. This stuff? I've never heard of. Wouldn't have planned to blow it to begin with. It just damages a city we didn't need to burn down."
"Yeah.... welll.... what's done is done I guess." He responded.
"What about where you make those stick bombs?"
"We used to press the parts in the armory.... but I think the assembly warehouse is still a warehouse... you know 'all in one piece'." He responded, "Its a bit closer to the waters than the armory itself."
"That's something to work with, then. I'll see what we can do with the parts, and work with you to clear out the old armory. The mine I'll have to see about getting it secured then sending some of our demolitions folk to help blast it out. Metal isn't a worry, we can almost definitely do something with it to prevent corrosion. I'll need you to get me some samples of the local sand, and just round up every carpenter you can find so we can put them back to work."
"a...at gunpoint?" He asked, "Or are you going to be paying them for their work?"
"We'll be paying them. Point is they'll still need to be gathered so they can be offered work. Don't threaten them, think of this as something like... I don't know. How do you spread news around here?"
"There are meeting places and the like for the more social kinds of news... but usually if you want to know fast you have to head to a field office for the military. We got a few of those still standing but the army isn't what it used to be.... though I hear you guys are already trying to form it back together.
"So you don't even have a printing press or something?"
"Small ones... you try and keep machines like that working with all this dust around!.... Hell we got the biggest and best presses on the planet, run em as much as possible too! You want us to make a book about you guys?" He asked.
"I was thinking more about handbills, pass them out to spread news. We can give you books about us relatively easy, if you really want them." Arccos shrugged a little flippantly.
"YES!" he shouted, forgetting entirely about the handbills "I want whatever space-books you can give me!"
"What sort of topics?" Arccos asked, holding up her datajockey as if to take notes.
"ANYTHING!" He shouted, slamming his hands on the table... backing off a bit when he realized just how over-eager he must have sounded "Ahem... I mean, you have SPACE books. Anything in a space-book has got to be better than what we got here right? I bet you've got crazy-good gardening tips, and all kinds of exotic plants."
Arccos would squint slightly, clearly scrutinising the man for some indication of intent, "...Do you want space drug plants? Is that it?"
"Well... " He thought about it for a moment, "I mean, I just wanted to try some of your space-food... space-drugs sound... dangerous. Like... we can't handle your power armor. What makes you think we'd handle THAT well?"
"Don't... I mean. We could get you armor, it just has to be fitted for you. But it's also very expensive. You're just coming off as very... Uh... Enthusiastic about the books. Food I can understand. 'exotic plants' just comes off as a euphemism."
"Look, we might not have all that crazy armor... but we aren't all entirely stupid. You've shown us that your drinks and your weapons are a lot better... its safe to assume you also have better food right? And, it ain't like space-plants wouldn't be exotic... Then there's medicine.. and all that fancy space-technology you were talking about earlier."
He looked at the ground a bit, "We can't go back to how things were... but we might as well see whats ahead right?"
Arccos gave a short laugh. Looking... Maybe a little proud, "What's your name?"
"Josward Braith" He replied, "... and uh... what do we call you?"
"My designation is Arccos Two Three 52-9683-7587." Arccos rattled off the number, knowing full well that it was practically meaningless to these people, "You can simply call me Arccos, or Arc."
"Five...two...dash... nine..." He quietly mouthed, trying to remember her name as she rattled it off. Breathing a sigh of releif when she shortened it up, "OH ok.... Arc it is!"
"It's a pleasure to be working with you." Arccos gave a small inclination of her head, before turning to the rest of the crowd "And all of you. It's a gift to work with so many willing to make their home among the stars a better place."
