[Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

[majorminor]

The wifi is to record and share data. For civilian uses, to record hunts and show everything is on the level. Police and Military, to allow commanders to see confirm what exactly the shooter sees before approving engagement. The fact that the wifi aspect is connected to the weapons ability to fire or data input is nothing short of terrifying.

[Suederwind]

I guess it makes sense, to use that scope for recording what the operator of the gun is doing with it. But a simple usb port or so would be much safer than wifi.

The fact that the wifi aspect is connected to the weapons ability to fire or data input is nothing short of terrifying.

Its absurd to connect those abilities by wifi and I really can't see the benefits of that. Thats like an accident waiting to happen.
On the other side, it made me think a lot about Battlestar Galactica and all those fancy new weapon carrying UAV's...

[majorminor]

Like many other failures involving security, nobody knew it was a risk or viewed it as a very low one. The company was acting under the notion that the main purchaser would be hunters, and the only people that would mess with them would at most be activists and they'd have to be close. However if these got picked up by a law enforcement or military contract and this was found out by a not so nice group, things could have gone very bad.

[peragrin]

I guess it makes sense, to use that scope for recording what the operator of the gun is doing with it. But a simple usb port or so would be much safer than wifi.

The fact that the wifi aspect is connected to the weapons ability to fire or data input is nothing short of terrifying.

Its absurd to connect those abilities by wifi and I really can't see the benefits of that. Thats like an accident waiting to happen.
On the other side, it made me think a lot about Battlestar Galactica and all those fancy new weapon carrying UAV's...

The wifi only carries the video, it doesn't control the shot.

but the computer is in-between the trigger and the hammer fall. You pull the trigger and only when the gun is precisely lined up does the hammer fall.

For law enforcement the wifi isn't a big deal as on site commanders can confirm targets before the snipers shoot. There will be enough other wifi devices around to provide localized interference. in urban combat the same could probably be said as well. it is the lone sniper in a field where the wifi signal could alert the enemy.

This is why it isn't much of a risk yet. Also you can disable the wifi and still shoot.

[majorminor]

That's still a huge issue for government contracts though. Look at how much the United States has been hacked in recent history, and some of that has been due to negligence of protocols. Cyber warfare is becoming a greater aspect of conflict these days.

The weapon system still needs to have a human physically pull the trigger, but should the system be compromised a hostile element could alter data for the operating system or even delete it making its abilities worthless. I acknowledge that you can operate the system without wifi, but the issue of wifi access influencing weapons operation could make this a no go for LEO/DoD usage, since more parties with greater resources will seek ways to influence combat.

[Sweforce]

Sister problems again?

[dragoongfa]

Underestimation of size problems actually, this part is among the BIG ones.

[Sweforce]

Underestimation of size problems actually, this part is among the BIG ones.

I see, looking forward to it.

[dragoongfa]

Chapter 13, part 1

Between being strapped on the chair, the mental recovery after being subjected to quite a few Gs of acceleration and the Tenoin Narrat’s easily palpable nervousness, Teidar Thunderspear found it hard concentrating on enhancing her sensing.

“How much closer Teidar?” Tenoin Narrat Beak sent at her, causing her to break her concentration once more.

“As close as you can get without crashing us into them or an asteroid.” Thunderspear snapped back angrily and returned to her meditation that would hopefully let her sense the still living crew aboard the Umiak ship before they were killed by the inevitable crash.

It was an ancient Teidar technique, perhaps older than the caste itself if one thought about it. She never expected having to actually use it in combat, especially in order to sense the crew of a starship, but it was the only thing that she could do in order to see if the Shells could be detected from up close.

A few millennia ago all Teidar were required to master this technique, it helped immensely on campaigns where it was impossible for an army to have farseers with it and intelligence on enemy movement and disposition was paramount. It was quite simple on its concept but very taxing on one’s mind; first a warrior would have to bring down the mental barriers that cut off the nearby telepathic noise, something dangerous in a campaign as even a light telepathic shout could incapacitate the warrior doing that, then the warrior would focus on sensing the very feint life signs on the edge of her sensing range and slowly push her mind further and further away until her sensing range increased by several factors. This had its drawbacks of course; beyond the danger from a possible mental attack, one had to take into account that the accuracy of the sensing was far from pinpoint, the warrior doing the technique would have to remain still and it was impossible for her to do any other telepathic or telekinetic technique while doing that.

This technique inevitably became obsolete with the advent of amplifiers and telecommunications technologies and was only taught to a select few for posterity, in order to instill some mental discipline to those that lacked it or as a mild form of disciplinary action for those few who couldn’t keep themselves from causing trouble. Thunderspear always wanted to believe that she was forced to sit on those pedestals practicing it for the first two reasons but she had to concede that she was forced to do so mainly for the latter two reasons.

The Umiak ship should be well within her enhanced sensing range, in fact it should be too close for comfort if she was to judge by the Tenoin’s nervousness; yet she still couldn’t sense any life sign from it. She wondered for a moment if wearing her amplifier would make any difference but it was best to avoid using it in conjunction with this technique, since it made the already inaccurate sensing far worse in that regard and she had to make sure that what she sensed was actually from the Umiak ship or a trick caused from the combination of the enhanced sensitivity and the amplifier.

“Brace yourself Teidar!” With her mental barriers down the Tenoin’s sending was akin to a strong shout which was enough to momentarily disorient her but she did manage to prepare herself for what followed.

At first she felt her stomach lurch as the shuttle pivoted itself in order to bring its engines forward before being forcefully pushed on her seat by several Gs of deceleration as the engines struggled to shed the shuttle’s speed while altering its trajectory in order to avoid colliding with the giant asteroid on which the Umiak ship was about to crash onto.

“Warn me next time Tenoin!” She sent angrily to the pilot when the pressure begun to subside.

“I did.” The pilot replied coldly.

“Earlier! You know that I am not wearing a liquid medium suit!”

“I did advise you to wear the other one before we left Silverspear.” The Tenoin reminded her, which was true but she declined mainly because she wouldn’t be able to concentrate while wearing that contraption.

“What happened to the Shell ship?” Thunderspear asked when she remember why the two of them were out there at the first place.

“It crashed. I am bringing us about for a better view.” The Tenoin replied before being enshrouded in shock. “How tough are the Shells building those things?”

“Don’t tell me it is still intact.” Thunderspear sent in disbelief

“Come and take a look because even I can’t believe this.” It took her a few solons to unstrap herself and far more to stagger into the cockpit as her legs had still to recover from her previous ordeal, thankfully her mind was still fully lucid and she was able to stabilize herself with telekinesis the couple of times she was about to fall.

“How did it manage to stay in one piece after crashing at that speed?” Thunderspear asked as she looked at the crashed wreck. She knew that describing what they saw as ‘still in one piece’ was an exaggeration as several compartments were obviously missing or crushed from the impact but the truth of the matter was that most of the ship was still there, battered beyond recognition but still there nonetheless.

“It came down at an angle and first hit the surface here.” The Tenoin pointed at a holographic map of the asteroid’s surface she brought up. “It looks like the surface there is some sort of porous rock that absorbed the worse of the impact, the ship then skipped a couple of time before ending up where it is now.”

“I understand, do you think that any Shells onboard survived that?”

“They are tough and their inertial dampers are like ours, with shipstone reserves in case of a full power outage. They certainly felt it but more than a few of them should still be alive in there.” Beak replied.

“Bring us into sensing range then.” Thunderspear ordered.

“We were at sensing range before we veered off.” Beak pointed out as she brought the shuttle about.

“Did you sense anything?” Thunderspear asked.

“No.”

“Me neither and my sensitivity and range had increased by several factors. Let’s see if we can sense them this time.”

“Yes Teidar.”

It only took a handful of solons to bring the shuttle practically on top of the wreck but the result was still the same.

“Do you sense anything Teidar?”

“No, do you?”

“No.”

“Even the Historians have living crews on their ships and they are the only ones who have artificial intelligences, we should be sensing them right now.” The Teidar thought.

“What if they went with a full cybernetic crew, much like their hard-troops?” Beak wondered.

“No, we can still sense hard-troops, even the heavily augmented ones. That’s because their brain and most of their central nervous system are still intact.” The Teidar explained.

“Then they must be doing whatever the humans are doing.”

“Maybe, but Shadowcloud is convinced that the human Lotai cannot be easily copied by anyone else.” Thunderspear replied.

“She is a Mizol, she must be playing one of their games with us.” Beak pointed out. “She would explain why she came to this conclusion otherwise.”

“Foolish…” Thunderspear thought. “The Mizol are many things but traitorous is not one of them. Shadowcloud and her ilk have done more to safeguard the Empire than entire fleets. She has a reason for not wanting to disclose what she and Sulfur discovered and if that reason has to do with the well being of the Empire then no one but those who need to know will learn about it.”

“Few of us can comprehend why you Teidar can trust her so much.”

“She has been right more often than not.” Thunderspear replied and smiled crookedly. “And we got to fight some interesting battles due to that.”

“Fine, you trust her, so let’s assume that the shells are doing something different than the humans but somehow they end up with the same result as the human Lotai when it comes to our sensing. How do we figure that trick out?” Beak thought.

“Find a Shell we can’t detect and interrogate it.” Thunderspear replied out of reflex.

“Those are all in the wreck below us and I doubt that you alone can go in, grab one and come out alive with it in tow.” Beak pointed out.

“If I was younger I would have taken issue with that statement.” Thunderspear joked before realizing something. “There could be some Shell hard-troops still alive on the human ship.”

“The humans must have killed everyone that attacked them or their ship would be taken.” Beak replied.

“Not necessarily. That would be the case if they board one of our ships; they know that they have to attack with overwhelming numbers, firepower and speed when they do so because of us Teidar. Anything other than that will result in their entire boarding force being destroyed by us without them even seeing us. However their doctrine is completely different when they are boarding everyone else, first they send a sizeable force that will occupy most of the ship’s defenders in a protracted firefight while using minimum firepower while other teams would infiltrate the ship with stealth equipment in order to capture critical areas and live crew before demanding the surrender of the rest of the ship. This never worked with us because of our telepathy but that’s their standard doctrine.” Thunderspear explained.

“Then… didn’t the Umiak captain say in one of the messages we intercepted that they cut off their farseer?” Beak asked.

“Yes. They actually thought that the humans are telepaths!” Thunderspear chuckled before thinking about it. “It does make sense though, the humans look like us and both Listel and Barsam talk about how our template species would be telepaths as well…”

“We don’t have a template species!” Beak protested. “The Soia’s made us to their image and the humans can't be Soians.”

“Don’t be so confident about that.” Thunderspear snapped back. “I don’t like it but many do think and talk about it and if the Shells have heard about it they would come to this conclusion in an instant.”

“Do the humans look like us so much?” The Tenoin asked in disbelief even if she knew the answer.

“Yes.”

“Then they would have to attack the human ship the same way they would attack ours, unless they were confident that the humans wouldn’t be able to sense them.” Beak concluded.

“In that case they would attack with their classic doctrine because it causes the least collateral damage. In which case some Shells should still be alive on the human ship; if we still can’t sense them, then we will have to find a way to catch one alive but if we do sense them, then that means that whatever they are doing has to do with something on their ship.” Thunderspear agreed.

“So we head to the human ship to find out. Will the humans cooperate with us though?”

“Their team is still alive and unharmed back at Silverspear thanks to Shadowcloud.” Thunderspear pointed out.

“Soroin Torret Darkwing hasn’t been herself after everything that happened to her ship and the squadron we were part of.” Beak replied in defense of her captain.

“And Shadowcloud has shown a lot of restraint because of that.” Beak seemed ready to send a rebuttal at that but refrained from doing so. “This Mizol has many regrets that haunt her Tenoin, one of them is the fact that she has been forced to kill more Loroi than Shells during this war. Despite her regrets all of those traitors deserved far worse than the deaths she gave them.” Thunderspear just stared blankly out the window as she thought of that. “She does what needs to be done in support of the war effort and whoever comes in the way of it will die. The Soroin Torret got too close in being an obstacle rather than an expected hindrance. It was the farseer who defused the situation by pointing out that we could now send a shuttle to observe what was happening and find out if the humans were indeed cooperating with the Shells.”

“Silverspear would stand with its Soroin Torret.” Beak replied in shock.

“And that would make no difference against someone of Shadowcloud’s telepathic and telekinetic strength, even if all of us Teidar stood by and just watched things unravel.” Thunderspear sent with a bland, honest tone.

“That’s…”

“That’s something that didn’t come to pass and the humans have shown that they are not working with the Shells. Furthermore the threat to Silverspear has been neutralized by them and they have no reason to attack us since their team is still safe and sound aboard Silverspear.” Beak didn’t reply at that and just focused on piloting the shuttle until Thunderspear remembered something important.

“Who is going to talk with the humans?”

“I am wearing a liquid breathing medium suit.” Beak pointed out.

“Can’t you take it off?”

“Not without the equipment back at Silverspear.”

“I am a Teidar, I can’t talk with aliens.” Thunderspear protested.

“And I am breathing a liquid solution with a high concentration of oxygen.” The Tenoin pilot pointed out again.

“The others won’t let me forget about this…” Thunderspear replied in resignation. “Although this could be called a combat necessity.”

“Whatever makes you feel better Teidar.”

“I have been wondering, what is the human shuttle doing?” Thunderspear asked as she pointed to the icon that represented that shuttle on the holographic map.

“Probably picking up the ones who prepared and launched the torpedoes we saw.”

“Don’t torpedoes let out a lot of radiation at their wake?”

“They do.”

“So they probably want to get them back to their ship as quickly as possible.” Thunderspear thought and formulated her message as she reached out to open a communications channel to the human ship.

“This is Teidar Thunderspear onboard the shuttle from the Loroi Union vessel Silverspear. I politely inquire about your status and if we can offer assistance.”

“You should have mentioned that their team is alive and well.” Beak pointed out.

“That’s probably the first thing they are going to ask about. Asking about their ship's status while also offering assistance should put them at ease about our intentions while if we mentioned their team in our opening message they could come to believe that we are using them as hostages.” Thunderspear explained.

“That’s Mizol thinking.”

“I have been around Shadowcloud for too long.” Thunderspear admitted.

“This is Captain Asteios of ECS-175 Matveyev. I would first like to know about the status of my team aboard your vessel.” The human male that spoke had obvious signs of aging on his face, pitch black hair and pinkish skin like many of the humans she had seen up to that point. It felt weird for her to see an alien that look so much like a male wearing a space suit while being in command of a warship. She quickly pushed those thoughts aside and studied his expression like Shadowcloud had taught her. The mix of stress and anger was easy to notice, something that was to be expected considering everything that happened, the question was if the anger was directed at them for how they acted or the Umiak. She drew a breath in order to prepare herself and hoped that what she was about to say wouldn’t draw his ire, even if it was from just an alien male.

“They are all alive and unharmed under the protection of Mizol Torimor Shadowcloud who wishes to express her deepest apologies about the lack of communication from our part due to the shock that many aboard Silverspear felt once they learned of the Umiak ship.” Thunderspear replied and waited.

“That’s… understandable…” It was obvious from the pause and his shifting expression that the human Captain had many more things to add to that statement but decided otherwise. “Currently our Marines are fighting to clear our ship from the remaining Umiak boarders. I would appreciate it if you returned to your ship and informed everyone about what has happened in order to ensure that no more misunderstandings occur.”

“Great, there are still some hard-troops alive on their ship.” Thunderspear thought.

“So how are we going to get close to see if we can sense them?” Beak asked. “He just told us to go back to our ship.”

“You are thinking like a Tenoin.” Thunderspear replied.

“Captain Asteios, as a Teidar I believe that I can help you by using my telepathic and telekinetic abilities to locate and neutralize any and all Umiak aboard your ship without inflicting any further damage to it or injury to your crew.”

“I don’t think that he will accept the offer.” Beak commented.

“Think like the commander of a starship that has hostile hard-troops aboard, plenty of combat damage and lots of radiation poisoned crew that require immediate medical attention. He won’t like it at first but the circumstances will force him to think about it.” Thunderspear explained.

“But we don’t even know if we can detect the hard-troops at the first place.”

“That’s exactly what we want to find out Tenoin.”

“I have been informed of the capabilities of the Teidar…” The human captain begun. “Are you certain that you can do what you say without damaging my ship or injuring my crew?”

“See, he is desperate.” Thunderspear thought triumphantly.

“Captain Asteios, I am a Teidar, there is no word that leaves me that isn’t true.”

“Then on your word of honor as a Teidar I accept your offer of assistance but I regret to inform you that I cannot guarantee your safety aboard my ship for reasons that are readily apparent.” The human captain replied.

“You don’t have to worry about my safety Captain, since there is no need for me to step inside your ship while I dispatch our enemies.” Thunderspear replied.

“Are the shuttle’s space suits full?” Thunderspear asked.

“Yes Teidar, I checked them before we departed.” Beak replied.

“Good, I would hate to run out of oxygen just as I am about to crush a Shell.” She replied as she reached the emergency locker at the back of the cockpit. Even without assistance it didn’t take long for her to remove her body armor and wear the space suit over her body suit. The suit itself was there for emergency situations aboard the shuttle so it didn’t have micro thrusters attached to it but it didn’t matter since she could easily maneuver herself with telekinesis, thankfully the suit’s helmet had the necessary space for both her amplifier and hair so she wouldn’t have to do something drastic to wear it.

“Checking the suit’s comms, can you hear me Tenoin?”

"Yes Teidar."

“Good, keep the shuttle well out of sensing range in case I need to try something unorthodox in order to sense the Shells.” Thunderspear ordered.

“Understood. Should I patch you directly into a channel to the human ship?”

“Yes, make sure to hear and record everything. Shadowcloud may want to go through it later.”

“Yes Teidar.”

“Captain Asteios, the shuttle will hold a wide holding pattern while I will be circling your ship closely. I would appreciate it if you would connect me directly to the commander of your marines before I begin.”

“Of course Teidar Thunderspear, he also wishes to talk with you before doing anything.” The human captain begun.

“I understand.”

“We are here Teidar.” Beak informed her.

“Good, unlock the airlock and keep your distance.”

“Teidar Thunderspear? I am Lieutenant Allerberger. I don’t believe that we were introduced back at your ship.” A oddly familiar voice said.

“We weren’t introduced but I think that we did come across each other. I was the Teidar your team cut off from the rest of the ship when your team came aboard unannounced.” Thunderspear said as she walked through the inner airlock.

“I think that I should thank you then for the restraint you showed in that situation.” The human replied.

“It’s no issue, you and your men did stay away when I told you to do so.”

“There is that of course… forgive me for asking but I thought that Teidar preferred not to converse vocally.” The human commented.

“We Teidar are exemplar warriors and vocal communications are a necessity in combat.” Thunderspear explained as the air around her was being vented.

“That’s easy to understand… Captain Asteios informed me that you are to help us with our vermin issue.” Thunderspear couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “How exactly are you going to do this?” Once the venting was over she jumped outside and quickly oriented herself using her telekinesis. She slowly flew towards the shuttle’s cockpit and waved before speeding past it and turning towards the human ship.

“I believe that Mizol Torimor Shadowcloud explained our telepathy and telekinesis. I will simply sense the exact location of any shell aboard your ship and then I will use my telekinesis to kill them one at a time from a distance. I don’t need to come aboard your ship nor do I need a direct line of sight in order to do this. There should be no problem as long as I can accurately sense them and pinpoint their exact position.” She explained and begun to slow herself down halfway to the human ship.

“And there is no risk to the ship or to any of us humans from this?”

“Your species is totally impervious to sensing but even if it wasn’t, every species has a distinct signature that separates them from others. Unless you are Umiak yourselves, there should be no way for me to accidentally harm any of you. I want to add that if for any reason I am not able to precisely pinpoint their location then I will inform you and devise another plan to dispatch them.” She nearly cried out in triumph in mid sentence when she finally begun sensing something the moment she entered sensing range. The life signs were feint at first but their nature was undeniably Umiak.

“Then I would like you to inform me when you locate them and when you are about to begin.”

“Of course, I am already sensing several life signs and all of them are undeniably Umiak in nature. I will have an exact number and their locations when I circle your ship a couple of times.”

“I understand, keep me informed.” It was obvious from the tone of his voice that he didn’t like this but few were foolish enough to deny the help of a Teidar, besides the humans certainly wanted to see a Teidar in action and she was more than willing to kill a few Shells after being coped up in a wrecked ship for so long.

“Lieutenant Allerberger, I am detecting seven Umiak and they are split in two groups. One of them, comprised of four Umiak, is slowly moving towards the stern section of your ship through the narrow midsection. The other team is near the bow, well below what looks like to be your ship’s bridge from out here. All of them are terrified.” Thunderspear reported, mostly out of courtesy.

“I see, we still haven’t sweeped the bow portions of several decks and we have already beaten back two attacks against engineering at the stern. With what you said in mind we should be outnumbering them more than two to one.” The human marine replied.

“There is no need for you or your marines to involve yourselves any further Lieutenant Allerberger, I am more than able to dispatch all of them in a short amount of time.”

“I see… you may begin whenever you are ready.”

She quickly flew towards the aft section and stopped right alongside the narrow midsection that connected the two halves of the ship. She concentrated on sensing the exact location of the four hard-troops and pondered on how to proceed. Shadowcloud would certainly like to have one of them for a quick interrogation but that was out of the question in the situation she was in, as she had to ensure no further damage to the ship itself. The only way to do this was to ensure the kills in quick succession and that was best done by crushing the insides of their heads. The armor itself was hard to crush, Shadowcloud and some of the stronger Teidars would certainly be able to do it but her telekinetic strength was just above average among her caste; the mushy insides of each shell was another matter entirely and as long as a warrior knew the exact location of her target and the distance involved it was easy to get to them without resorting to the brute force approach of crushing and throwing around everything that they wanted dead.

She concentrated on one of the shell life signs, trying to determine the precise location of its head; when she was certain that she had the right spot, it was only a matter of applying her full telekinetic strength in order to turn the brains into a black mush. The life sign disappeared instantly the moment she did that and concentrated on locating the next.

“One Shell crushed…” She reported as she applied telekinesis to her next mark.

“Two Shells…” Then the next.

“Three Shells…” The last one started running and moving erratically after realizing what was happening but she had had ample training to deal with such simple counter measures.

“Stern team neutralized, moving on to the bow team.” She reported as she flew herself towards the second Umiak team that now felt panic stricken. They all tried the same thing as the other one but it didn’t matter at all. In the end it took her less than 40 solons to dispatch all seven Shells.

“Lieutenant Allerberger, your ship is now clean of Shells.”

Chapter 13, Part 2: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 525#p20525

[dragoongfa]

4.325 words later and the first part of chapter 13 is out and contains a small demonstration of what a Teidar is capable of.

[Sweforce]

4.325 words later and the first part of chapter 13 is out and contains a small demonstration of what a Teidar is capable of.

Reminds me of snipers. Unseen killers but also high value targets. Sometimes artillery and other heavy ordnance are used to take out individual snipers. Very bad for your morale to have an enemy sniper picking of your team one by one. Still I suspect the a teidars worst enemy are another teidar.

Anyway great work, whenever you finish the story, do not stop writing, start up another project instead.

[dragoongfa]

4.325 words later and the first part of chapter 13 is out and contains a small demonstration of what a Teidar is capable of.

Reminds me of snipers. Unseen killers but also high value targets. Sometimes artillery and other heavy ordnance are used to take out individual snipers. Very bad for your morale to have an enemy sniper picking of your team one by one. Still I suspect the a teidars worst enemy are another teidar.

Another Teidar, some sort of unmanned drone and anything else that they can't sense and has a gun.

Anyway great work, whenever you finish the story, do not stop writing, start up another project instead.

I will let people know when my first original fic is up for grabs.

[Krulle]

There is some ambiguity about hard-shell team sizes, see spoiler....

SpoilerShow

Chapter 13, part 1


[...]

“I believe that Mizol Torimor Shadowcloud explained our telepathy and telekinesis. I will simply sense the exact location of any shell aboard your ship and then I will use my telekinesis to kill them one at a time for from a distance. I don’t need to come aboard your ship nor do I need a direct line of sight in order to do this. There should be no problem as long as I can accurately sense them and pinpoint their exact position.” She explained and begun to slow herself down halfway to the human ship.

[...]

“Lieutenant Allerberger, I am detecting seven Umiak and they are split in two groups. One of them, comprised of seven Umiak, is slowly moving towards the stern section of your ship through the narrow midsection. The other team is near the bow, well below what looks like to be your ship’s bridge from out here. All of them are terrified.” Thunderspear reported, mostly out of courtesy. [One team with seven, the other team with?, make a total of seven??? - Three paragraphs down you note one team of four hard-troops ("She quickly flew towards"). Please check your notes... ]

“There is no need for you or your marines to involves yourselves any further Lieutenant Allerberger, I am more than able to dispatch all of them in a short amount of time.”

[...]

[...]

She concentrated on one of the shell life signs, trying to determine the precise location of its head; when she was certain that she had the right spot, it was only a matter of applying her full telekinetic strength in order to turn the brains into a black mush. The life sign disappeared instantly the moment she did that and concentrated on locating the next.

[...]

Lovely. Thank you. Looking forward to the next part.
So, at least these Loroi know something's not right, and now they want to know what and how.
You're making me curious if they'll find out, and whether they'll be living long enough and able to report.

Also I get the feeling that these seven are a trap.
The Teidar says that "All of them are terrified.".
Why are they terrified? Because they know they lost their ship?
Or because they are bait for anyone telepathic and there are some device-protected one aboard the Matveyev as well?
Who can now go an a rampage while knowing the Teidar did not find them.

[dragoongfa]

Who knows why they are terrified, maybe its because they are all that remains from a total of 60 hard-troops that were sent to take over the ship or its because they lost contact with their ship. Maybe someone activated an explosive device and they were praying for a quick death. Maybe they knew that they would be detectable if their ship opened the distance for any reason and they would die while failing their mission.

Nobody knows really.

[Argron]

Dunno about the umiak but I'm terrified of that loroi lol
Seriously, she makes monsters from terror movies look like kittens

[Sweforce]

Dunno about the umiak but I'm terrified of that loroi lol
Seriously, she makes monsters from terror movies look like kittens

Kind to think of it. If there is another civil war among the loroi, access to human soldiers can give an edge against mental power specialists. Human hating traditionalists beware.

[dragoongfa]

Dunno about the umiak but I'm terrified of that loroi lol
Seriously, she makes monsters from terror movies look like kittens

So you think that a slightly above average Teidar is scary?

[Sweforce]

Dunno about the umiak but I'm terrified of that loroi lol
Seriously, she makes monsters from terror movies look like kittens

So you think that a slightly above average Teidar is scary?

I came to think about how magic worked in Shadowrun. A mage can only cast spells on targets in the line of sight, thou this line can be bent with modern solutions like mirrors, periscopes and optical cables. As long as it is purely optical, it works. A high tech mage can then use modern scanners to find the target, then point his optical, let's say binoculars in that direction and look for something and to cast at. Add to this cybernetical augmentations to the mage that indeed will weaken his magic power but allow him to use that cyber stuff that is now part of his being and thing can get really nasty. And if nothing else, even if Firebblade cannot directly see a human, knowing where the target is, even if behind a wall can allow for some nastiness. All it takes is a IR display on a visor to know where to squeeze. Indeed this could have been done to the humans in your story as well. Not seeing the soul of your target is irrelevant if you can see their heat signature.

[dragoongfa]

The problem is calculating the exact spot to hit and then focusing on it, mirrors and other such tricks do give a roundabout line of sight but they don't give the precise location of the intended target and the target will be doing anything in their power to both make it harder to be hit (ECM and erratic movement) and to kill the Teidar before they kill them.

The additional problem is that if its a Teidar vs Human squad fight then the Humans can afford to take some casualties which will be far fewer than anyone else that could be sent, including other non Teidar Loroi.

In the end the greatest advantage that the Humans will have over the Loroi will be in ambushes. Mirrors, thermals and every optical device can be blinded even with today's tech, add in ECM and traditional spoofing techniques and the Loroi won't know what hit them.

The greatest advantage Loroi would have in a ground conflict with Humans (besides their temporary tech advantage) is that the average Human soldier won't really want to kill them. The same could probably be said for the average Loroi warrior as well but the Human Lotai adds enough otherness that they will probably ignore the similarities if it came down to a long range fight.

[majorminor]

If the loroi made contact in during the Second World War I could see them not firing willingly, but training has changed greatly to the point that atleast U.S. combat forces have a better engagement rate. Plus whatever hindrances that exist tend to disappear after contact from the various family and friends of the family I've talk to who served in various wars as combat arms from WW2 to the Iraq war.