(This post was written cooperatively by myself and Kandarin, the first section is his, the second section is mine.)
Cruiser Khodorkovsky
High Orbit over Tassavalta
“Departing in five, Bay eleven. Repeat, departing in five, bay eleven. Ground teams, departing in five.”
The dispatcher’s voice was loud and smooth over the maddeningly complex movements of supplies and personnel in the departure bay. He could have had a thriving career in radio a few decades or a nation or two away, Lucille thought. No, she added, shaking her head. He would have been snapped up by the military and wound up as a general somewhere. Anyone who could keep all of this straight had a head for logistics.
Normally, the teleportation bay - a feature unique to the ships that flew the banner of Lady Secondary Lucille Haskalah - was a vast, empty gulf. Almost all of the time, the bay’s labyrinthine network of transit nodes sat nearly empty, unused save for the occasional assassin or VIP, concepts that almost totally overlapped in Haskalah’s organization. Now, in the wake of the fall of the Kandarinese facility at Jotunheim, the true purpose of their design was apparent. The teleportation bay of the Khodorkovsky was a hive of activity, crowded with personnel, vehicles and weapons. The Kandarinese had been pulling out the stops in recent days, and expressed that by exploiting their advantages to ship as much aid as possible to the flagging resistance forces. With mechanisms such as these, they could provide more in days than could be slipped under the radar by conventional means in months.
Of course, the little flotilla of Kandarinese ships hadn’t actually shown their colors to the Packilvanians yet. For all the activity on board, their drives sat idle, intent on leaving as little signature as possible as long as they were acting alone.
Special effects…check.
Things that go ‘boom’…check.
Budget still in the black…check.
A plan…I’m making it up as I go along.
Making sure that they weren/t acting alone was the point of this little expedition. And so one humble teleportation node was being used today by the one person who haunted the ship’s teleportation bay come rain or shine.
“So…how do I look?” Lucille turned to her Adjutant, gesturing to her attire. It was the same as she had worn in this situation innumerable times - black powered armor adorned with runes that were disquieting to look at for unplaceable reasons, hair braided a hundred different ways, and any number of bladed weapons holstered in ways that were both practical and discreet.
“My Lady, you look like a rejected candidate for the Women of Dystopian Emo Gothic-Punk calendar of 1993.”
“Why thank you, Niccolo.” The Overlord grinned. “I always appreciate your honesty.”
“Any time…and by the way, the tech crew told me to pass along a message. There’s going to be an added delay between departure and arrival. Compensating for something over in Drakkengard. Something big…they’re not sure what, but they can work around it.”
“Huh. Anything to do with…nevermind. I want what we know about it on my desk when I get back.”
“Yes, my Lady.”
“Good. Now, I have an appointment.” She strode toward the glimmering circle on the node floor, turning back to wave to the aforementioned tech crew. She did not expect a response, nor did she get one as the flames consumed the circle.
WNS Loki
Somewhere in the sea between King of Reigavalta and The Ard Riocht of Warre
The sky was dark, ominous. It was a pleasant sight in a situation such as this, with the water of peace on the edge of boiling because of the dreadnought force of force which was the Packilvanian ‘Hive’. The cybernetic monster who had long went beyond the normal bounds of an empire. Pleasant because in such a dark night, you would see the fire of an orbital bombardment from above. You would have time to pray to your gods or curse your enemies, to bless your family or slam down a last glass of the old water of life, that fire of spirit.
Despite the fact that the year was clearly the current day, the news blaring from the radio about the first minister of Dannistaan being attacked making sure it wasn’t possible for anything to argue that it wasn’t. It was a modern ship, and the modern day, but everything about this ship amongst the sea seemed to be a contrast of old and new. It was was low, extremely low, to the sea. Long, and low, with quite a bit of it’s inward cabins actually below the surface of the water. It’s deck was slight, barely a deck at all, but one with enough of one to aim it’s multipurpose artillery, anti-aircraft guns and for the eerie blue-black sails that it sported to fly. A storm ruffled the sails, moved the ship amongst the waves, moved them towards the south, and towards destiny.
And within a crowded center cabin, the cool winds ruffled papers, ruffled dark hair as the ship’s current commanding officer assessed the situation, a small but agile map moved it’s digitized papers as his partially gloved left hand moved things, touched things. The technology was new, rare and even more so amongst the more ‘modern’ nations. Mac Lir technology, the kind of stuff that the Warreic royal government made sure all of it’s black ops crews had.
Skilled hands moved the terrain, from a view of the entire northwestern East Pacific, the ‘Gulf of Mana’, as the Warreic had dubbed it as of late, to a view of the country nestled between the Reigavaltans, the Alleghenians, and the Pax meance. Mountains, rivers, forests came in clear three dimensional view, the view so detailed one could take their time to count every needle upon one of the pine trees within the forest, could every rock within the nearby steam. It was a tacticians dream, and better than simply being three dimensional, it updated in real time. The Mac Lir wouldn’t explain exactly -how- it did it, but it did. Left so much of a gap in understanding that the Warreic government had set a team of astrologists to look for satellites over the East Pacific that weren’t marked already as being by an established power.
The operator looked over a few views, even called up personnel files and credit histories as he noticed some of the survivors within the region, and as he noticed the drably dressed Warreic answer to the Packilvanian menace. The Stone Hounds, a group trained specifically to counter the Pax here, to equip the Tassalvaltans, and do with a hundred what it’d take a thousand to do otherwise. Cool water eyes watched it all, and then changed views. The map picking up something that shouldn’t be there at all, as he zoomed to the maximum view. They wouldn’t have been noticed at all if the cartographic machine hadn’t highlighted them with bright red colors, ships of unknown origin. No way they were Tassalvaltan, or from any power within the Northwestern region, the man reasoned.
Fuckin’ Hellspawn Delivering Nurse of the Cyborg Devil complications. Who the fuck flies those ships? What the fuck are they doing? One of the other big boys decide to help us little guys against Pack, or decide they need to step in before we pummel the robot’s faces in and equalize the level difference…? Just like paragons… to keep the level fives out of the big leagues.
The Ard Ri of the Warreic High Kingdom took himself another gulp of the whiskey from his glass. It was going to be a long night, as many this season had been. Ikirisa had the Vulpine Princess, and with all hopes, things would go as planned there. Civil war or not, Vekaiyu would not be the powerhouse it was now, and wouldn’t levy the threat it did. With hope, he could get their help to stop the Packilvanians. In fact, if it all went to plan, he’d have the Alleghenians and Listonians helping too, and even a goliath like Packilvania might stumble, might have it’s wermarcht halted. Complicated things made this come all the closer to go and all the further from checkers.