What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

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ShadowDragon8685
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Krulle wrote:Oh, forum rules are to be bent if it comes to fan-fic.

you might need to add a PG-18 notice, though.
Or provide a link to an external page.


But seeing how long-going this comic already is, I doubt we have many readers below the age of 16. If any at all.
:lol:
Good point. People who were born when the first comic was posted are almost old enough to get a learner's permit for driving, and can legally drink in parts of Europe.

[e] Crap, I'd need saint of m to add any NSFW tags, though...

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dragoongfa
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by dragoongfa »

Just ask Arioch on how to proceed with the mature stuff.

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Durabys
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Durabys »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Krulle wrote:Oh, forum rules are to be bent if it comes to fan-fic.

you might need to add a PG-18 notice, though.
Or provide a link to an external page.


But seeing how long-going this comic already is, I doubt we have many readers below the age of 16. If any at all.
:lol:
Good point. People who were born when the first comic was posted are almost old enough to get a learner's permit for driving, and can legally drink in parts of Europe.

[e] Crap, I'd need saint of m to add any NSFW tags, though...
On similar thoughts of sex and pregnancies..

I just posted a thought proving realizations post in the Looking forward to the Mirror thread.

In the story here, the situation is infinitely worse for Human Females.

The Human Males can actually have children with the Loroi Females.

Which, without using Eclipse Phase, TransHuman Space and Culture-tech augmentation technology, is going to be a fucking disaster for the Human social fabric.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. - If you wish for peace, prepare for war.

ShadowDragon8685
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Durabys wrote:I just posted a thought proving realizations post in the Looking forward to the Mirror thread.

In the story here, the situation is infinitely worse for Human Females.

The Human Males can actually have children with the Loroi Females.

Which, without using Eclipse Phase, TransHuman Space and Culture-tech augmentation technology, is going to be a fucking disaster for the Human social fabric.
I think you may well be overreacting here. Firstly, just because the Loroi women may be capable of being impregnated by human men doesn't mean anything remotely approaching a significant fraction of the Loroi women want the weird purple round-eared offspring that result.
Secondly, hybrids are notoriously infertile.
Thirdly, cultural converts like Stormrage aside, most Loroi women are not going to be remotely interested in any kind of long-lasting relationship, and even if they are, the majority of them are going to be people like Fireblade. Human males are not going to be particularly happy in a relationship where not only does she 'wear the pants,' she expects him to wear the dress, and she can crush the average passenger car with her mind.

The result is that it might be a lot easier for human men to get sex, but it will definitely not have a meaningful impact on human population growth.

Also, here's an interesting question: Why would human males necessarily be all that attractive to Loroi women? We're towering, freakish hairy apes compared to their men.

On the other hand, if we are, then who's to say human women wouldn't be more attractive to Loroi men than Loroi women? Human women are statistically closer to them in size and physical prowess, after all, and are hardwired to prefer commitment and stability over a lifetime of one-night stands they don't even get to choose, only having veto power over? If they're lucky?
Frankly I could imagine a lot of tired Loroi males, now in an environment governed by not-Loroi-women by people who have some rather strong views about how a person's gender should not decide whether one has personal autonomy or not, preferring human women.

You want to talk about an epic clusterfuck? That would be an epic clusterfuck. Forget any concerns about human women attracting human men, suddenly for the first time in history, Loroi women have to worry about actually attracting Loroi men!

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Durabys
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Durabys »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Durabys wrote:I just posted a thought proving realizations post in the Looking forward to the Mirror thread.

In the story here, the situation is infinitely worse for Human Females.

The Human Males can actually have children with the Loroi Females.

Which, without using Eclipse Phase, TransHuman Space and Culture-tech augmentation technology, is going to be a fucking disaster for the Human social fabric.
I think you may well be overreacting here. Firstly, just because the Loroi women may be capable of being impregnated by human men doesn't mean anything remotely approaching a significant fraction of the Loroi women want the weird purple round-eared offspring that result.
Secondly, hybrids are notoriously infertile.
Thirdly, cultural converts like Stormrage aside, most Loroi women are not going to be remotely interested in any kind of long-lasting relationship, and even if they are, the majority of them are going to be people like Fireblade. Human males are not going to be particularly happy in a relationship where not only does she 'wear the pants,' she expects him to wear the dress, and she can crush the average passenger car with her mind.

The result is that it might be a lot easier for human men to get sex, but it will definitely not have a meaningful impact on human population growth.

Also, here's an interesting question: Why would human males necessarily be all that attractive to Loroi women? We're towering, freakish hairy apes compared to their men.

On the other hand, if we are, then who's to say human women wouldn't be more attractive to Loroi men than Loroi women? Human women are statistically closer to them in size and physical prowess, after all, and are hardwired to prefer commitment and stability over a lifetime of one-night stands they don't even get to choose, only having veto power over? If they're lucky?
Frankly I could imagine a lot of tired Loroi males, now in an environment governed by not-Loroi-women by people who have some rather strong views about how a person's gender should not decide whether one has personal autonomy or not, preferring human women.

You want to talk about an epic clusterfuck? That would be an epic clusterfuck. Forget any concerns about human women attracting human men, suddenly for the first time in history, Loroi women have to worry about actually attracting Loroi men!
Oh. God.

This is Dwarf Fortress kind of hilarious. Hilarious and Fun in the same way when you accidentally bore a hole to Hell.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. - If you wish for peace, prepare for war.

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by sunphoenix »

Oh yeah, for those interested I'll place this here. Working on an Umiak now...

{Shrug}.. I'm just pleased I have earned an immortal place in the Legends of Outsider with Stormrage! ;)

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Krulle »

Let's just agree on the fact that both civilisations will face a gigantic change in values during the next few generations.
With big social upheavals....

I can also see more gay-relationships coming.

I mean, our women are attracted to strong warrior types.
Our men are often attracted to the more finely built specimen who need protection.

Gays are often more attracted to the stereotypic characteristics of their own sex. E.g. male (Human) gays preferring strong men.

I see a lot of gay Human women hooking up with gay Loroi female, and gay Human males with gay Loroi men.
With the interracial gay attraction, you get the physical attraction of your own opposite sex too...

Jezus, we are heading full steam into the passages the bible describes in "Sodom and Gomorrah".

The Umiak are sent by God to punish both....

(Can someone re-write the bible, please? From an Umiak point as being the righteous surviving race?)
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sunphoenix
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by sunphoenix »

I think sexual interaction with the Loroi in a peaceful society situation is Even more likely.. if Humans and Loroi CAN'T have offspring together!

Heck all the attractive sexy options.. none of the risks; for either partner!
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ShadowDragon8685
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

sunphoenix wrote:I think sexual interaction with the Loroi in a peaceful society situation is Even more likely.. if Humans and Loroi CAN'T have offspring together!

Heck all the attractive sexy options.. none of the risks!
Reminder: per Arioch, Loroi medicine is capable of fairly trivially sterilizing someone and undoing that.

[e] Also, perhaps this topic deserves its own thread, rather than clogging up two fic's threads?

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Siber »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote: [e] Crap, I'd need saint of m to add any NSFW tags, though...
Things have definitely gotten R-rated in places. If you think warnings are needed, you could always post them at the top of fiction posts. Not quite as good as in the topic title, but still gets the job done I'd think.
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Tamri
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Tamri »

Durabys,

I think, this fic can do without such complications. Because in contrast to the works of Dragoon on full seriousness and reinforced concrete "hardness", he didn't initially claimed. As a work, of not-centered on elaborate setting, it goes well and without full justification. The main thing that was interesting reading, which he still doesn't take away.

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Razor One »

Regarding potential NSFW content, as long as it's being handled in a mature manner and not for the sole purpose of titillation then I figure its fair to post here. It's a decent read just to get to the part where Alex and Fireblade are having a deep and meaningful whilst Fireblade is naked and the situation is written in a manner befitting the situation; the nudity serves a purpose in the scene and anyone getting hot and bothered over it is missing the fundamental nature of that scene, and any awkwardness felt by the reader is matched by Alex, putting the reader more firmly into the scene.

That being said, I'm reasonably certain that outright smut wouldn't be acceptable on this forum. Best to keep that questionable material offsite and use a fade to black here. I'm fairly sure that anyone interested in such material can filter there on their own recognisance.
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Absalom »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Absalom wrote:I would buy this logic for the military arm of the TCA, but the Scout Corp is interested in distant things, likely making in-region-refueling valuable... and hydrogen is easier to get from arbitrary sources than helium is. You can always resort to cracking water from comets, after all. So, if the Bellarmine could be hydrogen powered, then it probably was hydrogen powered, simply because it's an easier-to-find fuel source. I have no doubt that there's even an old Scout Corp proposal floating around for ultra-long-distance missions with smaller crews & a self-support capacity.
This fails the plausibility test. You need a few things to do in-situ fusion reactor refueling, none of which the Bell exhibited:
You need the ability to gather the fuel. This would mean either fuck-huge ramscoops and the ability to safely fly under main drive power/carry atmospheric engines in the atmosphere of a gas giant, or you would need big-ass mining equipment to cuddle up to a comet.
You need the ability to store the fuel, and whether you're getting it in-situ or from an unreasonably huge tanker, helium, let alone hydrogen, only compress so damn much, even to a liquid state.

[snip]

Also, if she were capable of in-situ refueling, she wouldn't need the tanker except for crew consumables, and you can damn well pack at least a year's supply of that for 80 people in a ship the size of Bellarmine. If that were the case, and she were capable of ISRU, her bingo range wouldn't be expressed as jumps away from the tanker, it would be time spent away from food supplies.
The "old Scout Corp proposal" would be "fit the Bennet class with ISRU & hydroponics for multi-year missions". The reason why hydrogen is the correct fuel for the Bennet class under my logic is that it allows small support base to perform ISRU at a great distance from TCA space. This is also why it seems rational that the combat ships might use M/AM: they can be expected to never go "far from home", so they can depend on resupply regardless of how long the run the reactors on max.
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Absalom wrote:The Bennet class existed before contact, and the passengers mostly didn't know how to build what they used. There'll be tech improvements, but the great bulk will come out with the next classes of ships, not the current ones (Mjolnir development will presumably be aided, though).
Doesn't mean they couldn't have refitted her. If she was the size she was, in fusion drive tech, she'd only probably have a bingo range of two jumps from the tanker, but slot an antimatter reactor in there and bam, ten+ jumps.
And bam, even if the tanker has ISRU equipment it can't be used to top-up the Bennets. We're looking at a coal-vs-sail scenario here: there aren't any coal ports, so sail is the correct choice, despite the fact that coal is in all other ways superior.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Durabys wrote:I just got a brilliant idea:



Rapid Fire Kinetic Railgun/Coilgun Fragmentarty Flak?

The purely Human cock-blocking answer to Umiak Missile/Torpedo Spam. Remember: Kinetics don't trigger the shields on the torpedoes. :twisted:
Blocked in my country on copyright grounds. :(

That having been said, kinetic PD is certainly a viable option, and would probably be the one humans will be employing. It doesn't have nearly as much range as the Loroi laser PDs and won't be as capable of savaging Umiak ships since their inertial dampening systems are effective against kinetic impacts, and any point-defense cannon is going to necessarily fire a lot of little projectiles instead of a big, fuckoff "I don't give a damn about your inertial dampeners" ship-to-ship cannon's projectile, which would be exponentially more destructive against a Umiak ship by the simple expedient of concentrating exponentially more force on a smaller area.

But I'd expect they'd actually be more effective as point-defense than lasers. The Loroi might consider arming at least some dedicated point-defense corvettes with mass driver PD cannons.
A lot of missiles carry exposive-pumped laser warheads, instead of ordinary explosives, thus out-ranging kinetic-kill point-defense. For any unfocused stuff & KK payloads the railguns will probably be at least as effective as a laser-autocannon, but they just can't compete with laser warheads.

And yes, Arioch has mentioned that they use explosive-pumped laser warheads.

Krulle wrote:Also, while I have a knack for abbreviations, I hate abbreviations used in space, military, and aeronautics. For those I have no feel. I still do not know if a cruiser is bigger than a frigate, or not. But then, both names are used for wide ranges of ships, so there is surely some overlap. And as I do not get my head to hold these details, however important they are to people who served, I tend to skip such details when readin a story. I read the words, but my mind will not remember whether the ship is 200m or 300m long, just because my head read frigate or cruiser.
But I do know that a battleship is larger than either, jsut as a heavy is either even larger (heavy battleship) or better armoured (heavy cruiser). But then, "heavy" can also refer to raw firepower.
Cruisers used to be bigger than frigates (I think destroyers were too), but in the US the Navy started using those words to refer to the purpose, so just stop thinking of them having any relation to size: they don't anymore.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:I've said it before, I'll say it again: Curse the 60,000 character limit. (I really wish we could get it doubled. Or maybe trebled.)
You might research which database is used, since that might actually be the source of the limit. There are ways to get around such things, but I'm not sure it would actually be worth it.

Mr Bojangles wrote:I'd argue against industrial production of AM being easy. Not to be contrary, but just because a machine as massive and powerful as the LHC produces on the order of picograms of AM per year. At that point, you're really counting individual atoms produced. I imagine (hope) a better method will be found, but even using the sun, the facility would likely be immense.
In his defense, the LHC isn't really designed to produce anti-matter. I haven't studied the subject, but I expect that anti-matter production could be significantly sped up by purpose-designing a facility: for example, Tesla coils supposedly produce small amounts of anti-matter when brought to the correct power densities. Also, there's this: "high volume" positron production. Assuming that normal-matter production is an acceptable side-effect (don't worry, you'll get that energy back), I would be highly surprised if there isn't an equivalent for anti-protons (though I at least would then start trying to run them through a fusion reactor to get something both diamagnetic & solid at "room" temperature).

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

She can't possibly mean it like that. If nothing else, she just told me that if she were planning anything like that, she wouldn't play coy, she'd just tell me outright. So... I think she's treating me as one of the girls... I think I should feel flattered, Alex thought, looking up at Fireblade, as she slid into the tight, skin-hugging outfit. He had to stop himself from chewing on his lip as he considered the invitation.

"Alexander?" Fireblade looked over her shoulder at him. "If I have made you uncomfortable, please, tell me," she said, and he shook his head, sighing.
"I..." Alex took in a deep breath, hoping he wasn't blushing. The invitation was, he felt, sincere. "I'm worried about embarrassing myself," he admitted, and Fireblade smiled.
"You are not alone in that regard," she admitted. "Still, you are one of us."

Alex blinked, biting his lip and shaking his head. "What does Beryl think?"
Fireblade was quiet for a moment, and then she grinned. "She is blushing, but thinks it would not be inappropriate. We are, after all, your closest friends and senior officers."

Alex chuckled, closing his eyes, shaking his head and grinning, picturing Beryl standing under the showerhead, blushing a dark shade of blueberry. It was, he thought, an adorable image, even if picturing her nude was at once uncomfortable and alluring. He couldn't help but chuckle again at the mental image, and Fireblade asked, "What is funny?"
"The mental image of Beryl blushing," Alex admitted, looking up, to see Fireblade grin. "But... Heh... I imagine it would make you three uncomfortable, though?"
"Perhaps it would," Fireblade conceded. "Just as perhaps it would make you uncomfortable. Still, the invitation is open, and the forward showers are small enough that only we would fit."

Alex nodded, and bit his lip. He stood up, and rolled his shoulders. "Right... Are you saying that this is a bonding thing that you think I should do?"
Fireblade shrugged. "I would not say that. Tempo did." She smirked at him and Alex laughed, shaking his head and feeling his face turning bright red, holding his hands up to his face, shaking with silent laughter.
Co-ed showers. That is a new one, he thought. Then again, the offer truly means they trust me. "You realize this is likely to result in weapons-grade enriched awkwardness, right?" He looked up, and saw Fireblade smirking at him.
"The color of your metaphor aside, yes. I would not press you to participate if you felt it inappropriate."

"No, I..." Alex sighed, blushing, rubbing his cheeks and standing up. "It's complicated, but... I... Eh, fuck it," he said, shaking his head. "Why not? It couldn't possibly be worse than some of the stuff we've been through; what's the worst that could happen?" Alexander grinned, even as he thought to himself, He said glibly; famous last words. He rolled his shoulders, grabbing a short duffel-like bag from the armoire into which he placed a second set of underwear and a spare duty uniform, slinging it over his shoulder and slipped out of the cabin, following Fireblade forward.

This is gonna be awkward as hell, but... Well, on the other hand, a hot shower with three of my sexiest best friends? Yeah, that's one to tick off the old bucket list. Besides, if it is a Loroi officer bonding thing, well... He felt nervous, as they approached the door to the showers, but a loud beeping from the Loroi tablet in his right cargo pocket got both his and Fireblade's attention. He pulled it out, checked it as it continued to beep insistently - a call from the bridge. Saved by the bell? He tapped the button to answer the call. "Go ahead, Bridge."

"Sorry to wake you, Captain," said a voice - after a moment, he matched it to a face framed by blazing orange hair, pulled back into a tight Viking braid cascading down to the base of its owner's neck. "We may have a problem."
"You didn't wake me, Pulsar," he said, turning and leaning on the wall. Two Loroi in off-duty outfits walked past; they saluted him and Fireblade, and were saluted in turn, automatically. "Go ahead, what's the problem?"
"We're about an hour from lifting ship, sir, and we can't locate Arrir Talon."

Jardin bit his lip. "Fireblade said she couldn't sense her aboard. Did you call Coldfjord?"
"We did, Captain. She requested and received permission to disembark from the night shift, boarded Coldfjord about two hours ago, met with Arrir Spiral, and the two apparently left shortly thereafter."

Alex rubbed his eyes, and looked up at Fireblade. After a moment, she gestured past Alex; Tempo was approaching, wearing her own skintight off-duty outfit, touching a hand to her temple, then shaking her head. "I can't feel them in range, Alexander," she said, and Alex sighed, and nodded, looking back to his Loroi tablet.
"Bridge, have you tried calling them? With radio, not sanzai?"
"Affirmative, Captain," Pulsar responded, sounding very slightly indignant. "As has the bridge of Coldfjord. They have either not taken communicators, or are unable or unwilling to answer." Alex rubbed his eyes.
"Alright, I'll go look for them," Alex said, with a sigh. Fireblade and Tempo raised their eyebrows, and he shrugged. "How hard can it be to find the two rowdiest Loroi I know on Luna-9?"

Fireblade snorted. "I will don my uniform and join you," she said, and he shook his head, pointing at her.
"You are going to go enjoy whatever shower-time bonding ritual you and Tempo and Beryl had planned. You'll just have do without me. Before you remind me that you were ordered to safeguard my person by Emperor Greywind herself, this is a large military base of my own people, I'm as safe here without you as I am on the Charred Steppes aboard Tempest. Probably moreso. I will take my sidearm and Pulsar, if it will make you feel better."

Fireblade glanced at him for a moment, an annoyed, yet amused smirk on her face. "Very well, Alexander. If you come to grief in my absence, I will not relent in reminding you of it for the next five years at least."
Tempo and Alex both chuckled, and he rolled his shoulders. "Where's Kelly, anyway," he asked, and Tempo smiled.
"Beryl volunteered to share her cabin with her. It seems likely she is still sleeping."

Nodding, Alexander turned, and looked back at them, with a smile. "Alright. I'll go wrangle our wayward pilots," he said, and grinned, "and I can get a cup of espresso while I'm out." Tempo raised her eyebrow, and he grinned. "I'll have to introduce you to that later," he said, heading for the bridge; he settled the bridge crew down when saluted, went into his office and took his sidearm from his desk. After a moment, he put his greatcoat on, and holstered the weapon - a brand-new railpistol - in the shoulder holster that had come with the jacket. It felt odd, but he imagined he'd get used to it, and hoped he'd never need to use it.

Back on the bridge, he rolled his shoulders. "Pulsar, on me," he said. Smoothly, the orange-haired gunner turned and stood up, heading for him.
"At your back, Captain," she said, and he nodded to Swift Harpoon.
"Get another gunner to take her place, and have the armory inspected and make ready to issue small arms," he said.

"Captain?" Swift Harpoon gave him a curious look, and he smiled.
"We're returning Opalstorm under armed guard as a prisoner. She has enough telekinetic power to do something stupid, and enough contempt for everyone aboard that I want to send a clear message: irregardless of her opinion, this is a warship with a well-trained, disciplined crew, not sniveling girls to be bullied by the likes of her."
Swift Harpoon nodded. "Aye, Captain. Anything else?"

"Yeah: don't leave without me," Alex said, with a laugh. "Pulsar and I are disembarking to go and find our wayward pilot and Coldfjord's missing commander."
"Understood, sir," Swift Harpoon said with a nod, turning back to her console, as Alex left and headed for the airlock. While it was cycling, he heard Swift Harpoon's voice over the intercom - seldom used on a Loroi vessel, at least until a human had showed up. "All hands, this is the bridge: prepare for small arms drills in 2,000 solon. Repeat: this is the bridge. Small arms drills commence in 2,000 solon." The intercomm clicked off, and Alex nodded.

"You didn't order that," Pulsar noted, and he nodded.
"No, but Swift Harpoon is currently in command of the vessel. She has the authority and initiative to order drills," he said. "And it's a good thing. She's taking initiative and anticipating what I should have ordered if I weren't so tired," he noted, and Pulsar nodded back.

Outside the airlock, he saluted the two guards on the airlock, and the human marine at the end of the gantry, both in response to being saluted. "Captain Jardin," she said. She had Corporal's bars on her shoulders, and he nodded at her.
"Corporal. Have you seen any Loroi come past this way in the last few hours?"
"Sir, yessir," she said, standing at attention. "A Loroi in orange armor with something like a handle behind her head came off your ship and went down the corridor to one of the damaged ships at the end of the line. A little while later, two in the same armor left, and headed into the base."
Alex nodded. "At ease." Down at the gantry to Coldfjord - and he sighed as he looked at the state she was in, still with her hull repairs unpainted - and looked back to the Marine. This one had a private's bar, and buzz-cut hair. She came smartly to attention and saluted, and after a brief questioning, Alex was off again, tracing the steps of his missing friend.

"Captain," Pulsar asked, quietly. "Could you not simply request that the facility staff locate Talon and Spiral? Surely it should not be difficult for them to locate two Loroi on a station full of humans," she asked, and Alex nodded.
"I could, and if we can't find them in half an hour I will, but I'd rather avoid doing that. The base commandant wouldn't appreciate it, and there would be paperwork to fill out," he said, and she nodded. Pulsar was getting a lot of stares as they headed down the huge thoroughfare, which was active enough even before 06:00. They were leaving the shipyard areas, heading into the support areas of the base; a wide promenade full of civilian support staff and the base and naval personnel patronizing their establishments; shops, primarily, but they also passed a screen showing a BBC report apparently recorded previously.
"Huh, what's that? An escape pod of some kind - was there an accident in orbit," Pulsar asked, and Jardin looked at the screen, actually focusing on it, then he grinned.

"No, not at all," he said, with a smile. "That's, uh..." He scanned the bottom of the screen - Pulsar couldn't read or speak English, of course, but he could. "A recreation of Voskhod 1, one of our first space capsules. More or less faithful, though with a lot more safety features, and a search and rescue craft flying standby," he said. She blinked, and looked at him.
"One of your... First space capsules," she asked, and he nodded, listening to the BBC reporter for a few moments.
"Yeah, I'd forgotten about this," Alex said. "We're in the middle of the anniversary of the decade when my people first went into space, including recreations of most of the major launches. See?" The BBC report switched back to an image of the launch; a tower of metal, flared outward at the base, trailing blazing rocket thrust and smoke. "A rocket one-sixth the size of Swiftwind, all to put that tiny capsule into orbit. This one had a schedule slip, apparently; it was supposed to launch over three months ago, but apparently they only got it off the ground Friday."

Pulsar snorted, shaking her head. "That looks incredibly unsafe," she said, and Jardin snorted.
"Yeah, well, it was. A lot of people died to get us as far as we are, but without pioneers willing to risk their hides to fly into space a tiny tin ball, we'd still be confined to our homeworld, no space elevators, no grav-plates or hyperdrives." He shook his head and grinned, looking back at her. "I'm sure the first Loroi astronauts rode something just as dangerous," he opined, and she shrugged.

"You would have to ask a Listel, I'm afraid I don't know," Pulsar replied, and Alex frowned. Right. Practically no education which is non-practical, he thought. I'm spoiled with my friends; Beryl's a Listel and Tempo's older than most of the Loroi I've met, she served in peacetime and had time for things like reading history.
He nodded at Pulsar. "Alright. Sorry," he said, turning to walk away.
"What for, Captain?" She sounded confused, and he looked back.
"It was not my intention to draw attention to a gap in your knowledge," he elaborated, swallowing. She may not have been one of his circle, but she was still someone he knew and generally liked, and the idea of having unintentionally called her out as ignorant sat ill with him. She shrugged.
"I am not offended, sir," Pulsar said, elaborating, "It's not my role to know history. It's my purpose to make it," she added with a slightly smug grin, and he nodded back, laughing quietly.

"It still seems kind of... I don't know, it's hard to say," he said, leading onward. "Not knowing much of your own history..."
"If it were important for gunners to know history, I'm sure we'd be taught it," Pulsar said, and Alex shrugged.
"Okay, but don't you want to know," he asked.
"Well..." Pulsar trailed off. "It might be interesting, but not particularly relevant to my present situation. Maybe if we weren't at war, there'd be time for learning such things," she said, and Alex sighed, quietly.
"Fair enough," he said, whilst closing his eyes briefly. They are all girls. I need to remember that; they may be grown physically, and ready to kill and die for the Union, but they are all trained for the sole purpose of waging war. That's... Really kind of sad. He swallowed, and continued on; his eyebrow raised when he heard pumping music coming from one of the promenade bars, the Catapult. A stylized holographic sign over the doors indicated a pair of fighter-craft launching.

Yeah, fifty bucks says this is where I'll find Talon and Spiral, he thought. There was a Catapult bar at Hellas Landing in orbit of Mars, and it had been a favorite of all pilots; fighter jocks and pig-pilots like himself and Ellen alike. If it was like the one he remembered from Hellas Landing, one of its main features was flight simulators. There seemed to be a larger crowd within, and he grinned as he saw that most of them were wearing TCA uniforms. Pilots, presumably on shore leave.

"I think we just found Talon and Spiral," he told Pulsar in Trade, and she tilted her head at him, then nodded.
"I can sense two Loroi nearby, but they are ignoring me resolutely. I could rudely demand their attention if nessessary; they are within, and concentrating intensely on something" she confirmed, and he nodded.
"Alright; there won't be any need to do that." He looked around, and pointed to a bench opposite the tavern's door. "Go wait over there, would you? This is a pilot's club, and a turret monkey wouldn't be kindly recieved by the locals," he said. Pulsar's eyebrow raised at him, and she walked over to the bench.

"Feel free to try being nice if anyone approaches you," he said. "Somebody around here has to speak Trade," he said, and Pulsar nodded at him, as he went into the cantina, looking around. The smell of alcohol and a crush of humanity hit him; a light sheen of sweat, and he wrinkled his nose.
By comparison, Loroi smelled positively pleasant even under heavy exertion, and he smirked as he looked around. There were two banks of simulators at divided sections at the back of the pub, and a mess of tables in between. There was an enthusiastic crowd watching at each simulator bank, and the action-cam system rigged up to the flight simulator booths was showing highlights as two squadrons of aerofighters closed on one another rapidly in Earth's atmosphere. It was clearly a Top Gun scenario, as none of the fighters were slinging ordnance weapons, and were clashing with cannons at dogfight ranges.

Entirely improbable an engagement, but fighter pilots were fighter pilots. He looked around, but didn't see the riotous blue spikes of Talon or seafoam-green hair of Spiral, so he assumed that if they were here, they had to be at one of the simulator booths.
"Hey there, Captain," the barkeep said over the music, gesturing him over, and Alex walked over. The barkeep was an older man, weathered and sporting a salt-and-pepper moustache and matching hair. A framed photograph of him about thirty years prior, with a bunch of other USASF pilots in front of aero-fighters, provided his bona fides. "You lost? This isn't the Officer's Club," he said, and Alex grinned.

"Don't worry; I came up as a helmsman. I know my way around a stick, and I've been to the Catapult at Hellas Landing," Alex promised, and the barkeep relaxed, crossing his arms and smiling.
"Well then, welcome back to the Catapult, Cap'n," he said. "M'son started this joint, moved out to Mars to start a new one and left me running the old one." He grinned at Alex. "And we have a treat for you, this morning, too - couple of fine alien ladies who can handle a stick better than half the whipped pups in here. I tell you, whoever had the bright idea to bring these blue elves back here made the right goddamn call."

Alex snickered, and shook his head, grinning. "I'm sure he agrees with you." He looked over at simulators and the screen above them, biting his lip, then nodded. Two of the red team's fighters were moving as if the pilots were communicating psychically, acting as if on information the other had - which they were, given that unlike a real aerospace battle, Talon and Spiral were almost certainly sitting next to one another. The red team was winning the engagement - not devastatingly, but they were giving the blue team hell, and the way Red 5 and 6 were moving together was unquestionably part of it, and Alex grinned as he recognized the evasive pattern the duo were flying, a distinctly Loroi weave pattern which did wonders in confusing targeting sensors coming from dead ahead... That failed entirely to protect Red 6 as one of the blue pilots came diving onto her from above.

Alex winced slightly as he saw the simulated interceptor break up under a shattering hail of mass driver cannonfire, heard a hiss of sucked-in breath from the crowd around the red simulators. With one of his friends out, whoever was at the stick of Red 5 was suddenly a lot more vulnerable, especially since the blue team had apparently determined who on the red team were the top guns and were ganging up on them. Red 2 went down with three interceptors chasing him (or her,) with the remaining two Blues coming up on Red 5's aft.

It didn't last; Red 5 pitched up on wingtip and yawed hard. It was a perfectly insane maneuver that definitely got the pursuit off her tail; even if the airframe could handle it, the pilot couldn't - unless they were used to a liquid breathing medium. Red 5 went out of control and Alex thought he caught the distinctive sound of an upset female outcry. Still, it seemed to have worked; with the two had been chasing Red 5 completely flat-footed, Red 7 through 10 quickly caught up and shot them down. There was a distinct tone of "what the fuck was that?" coming from the blue camp, and on the screen, his eyes watched Red 5 as it spiraled down and out of control. It looked like it was doomed to take a swan dive, but apparently the RNG was feeling generous, as the fighter leveled off, and then began climbing again.

The lesson appeared to have been well-learned, as the three Blues remaining chased down the four remaining Reds who were still at engagement height. One of the Reds went down in the opening salvo, and a general furball ensued, the sort that hadn't happened in human military history since the brief conflict in the 2090s when a hot war in Africa had wound up with all combatants in all the unusual position of being unable to source current-gen ordnance weapons but possessing current-gen passive and active countermeasures, rendering air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles entirely ineffective; and for a brief time, the flying ace was again king of the air war.

The Blues were coordinating, it was clear; they had turned things around, and even footing became the upper hand when Red 10 unluckily zigged when he should have zagged. He could hear that over on the blue side of the simulator racks, enthusiasm and boisterous competition had given way to clipped military precision. They weren't as good as the remaining reds, but they were taking the competition seriously now, and it was turning the tide. The remaining reds were forced to scatter and fly evasive; one Blue affixed firmly to each remaining Red's six, preventing them from taking any maneuvers except defensive, whilst the remaining, free Blue, attempted to catch a Red in a crossfire.

But the Blues hadn't seen Red 5 rising from below. On the other hand, if they could establish 2:1 superiority, it might well be over; Red 9 was flying for his or her life while Blue 9 and 10 were apparently hot-glued to his six, sending bursts of cannonfire whizzing past the airframe. Alex winced as a few gouges were opened in Red 9's right wing, but somehow the pilot held on for a few more moments, throwing the aerofighter into a hard loop; but not enough, since Blue 9 was trailing too far behind.

A burst of cannonfire went straight through Red 3, at exactly the same time Blue 9 was destroyed by a burst of fire from below. 3:2 had become 2:2 odds; Alex winced when he saw Red 7 get herded straight into Blue 10's evasive pattern, and the Blue was on the ball. The turnaround was turned around in an instant; it was only Red 5 left.

His rib sang as someone's elbow found it. "Oh man, now it's gonna get good," a woman's voice said, and Alex blinked, looking over. For a moment, his heart took a lurch; Ellen?! It was not - the similarity was the distinctive tattoo at the right eye, and she was a woman but that was all; the woman next to him was very Asian-American, between her distinct features and SoCal accent. "That one, Red Five," she said, "is one of those blue alien chicks, she has crazy anime hair, and she's been shooting down everybody like the Red Baron on meth."
Alex laughed, as the woman, who seemed at least two sheets to the wind, elaborated, "But those Blues left are the Blue's best pilots, man," she said, pointing up to the screen. "The Meth Baron may be in deep shit this time," she said, hoisting a shotglass aloft and screaming in the direction of the red simulator bank, raising her voice to a shout, "Kick their asses, sister!"

Talon, Alex decided, as Red 5 narrowly avoided a burst of cannonfire that by all rights should have taken its cockpit off, flying a spiralling barrel roll which arrested into an inverted loop about 45-degrees through the loop; completely off-guarding the blues who were gunning for the fighter at the top of the broad, arching barrel roll. Only Talon, he agreed with himself as Red 5 came up on the two blues, taking one of them down before they knew where she had gone. The rest of the downed red squadron were cheering her on, and somebody had the bright idea to put the "cockpit" cameras of the two remaining pilots in the lower corners of the big screen, replacing the team lists. Talon's face popped into the lower right; her expression intense, ecstatic, and smug, while the remaining Blue was a man whom Alex pegged as a Pacific Islander of some extraction, concentrating hard, his eyes flicking all over as he flew a hard evasive pattern.

He was running out of sane options rapidly, so he tried an insane one; Alex saw that he had switched his simulator booth into full-fat sim mode, while Talon (naturally, unfamiliar with human fighters,) was still in semiautomatic mode. The Blue pilot deployed all his flaps and fired a hard burn from his orbital RCS despite being well inside the atmosphere, causing his fighter to very rapidly decelerate. It could have worked - it should have worked, but for Talon's smug, showy attempt at a finisher, rolling hard and trying to drop in atop him. The results were spectacular; her right wing sheared the vertical stabilizers off the Blue's craft, and snapped half-way.

The crowd sucked in a breath, as things stopped being a dogfight and went to being a battle for control of two aircraft. Someone overrode the simulator's intention to declare a draw as the two pilots battled for control of their crippled craft. A slim Latina with heavy purple eyeshadow on leaned suddenly into frame in Talon's booth, reaching down under her right arm and tapping rapidly; she flipped the booth from semiautomatic to full-sim, and Alex watched Talon glance up at her with a look he thought was somewhere between surprise and attraction as she gave Talon a two-second rundown of the RCS controls. A burst of RCS helped stabilize Talon's craft, compensating for the missing wing and elevon, as the remaining Blue struggled to bank without spinning out of control. A moment later and he would have raked his cannonfire over Talon's craft.

A moment was all Talon needed, yawing hard to the left. With the newly-assymetrical air resistance of her craft and her RCS thrusters firing, she performed a tighter turn than the fighter should have been capable of, riding the limits of the simulated pilot blackout, evading the burst as the blue caught up with her. Next to Alex, the happily-inebriated Asian-American fighter jock shrieked with joy, and he winced as her piercing cry went off right into his ear.

The Blue tried to pull up onto Talon's aft again, and this time, she apparently had a plan, pulling a hard ascent, as if to complete a full loop or execute an Immelmann. The Blue pilot stayed glued to her, but Talon performed his own trick on him, executing a full stall in mid-loop with a burst of forward RCS, banking hard to the right and narrowly evading a burst of fire that skimmed just under her aerofighter's belly.
With his stabilizers out, he couldn't follow, and the stalling Talon brought her fighter into line with his on RCS thrust alone. Alex plugged his ear as a burst of cannonfire from Red 5 ripped the remaining Blue apart as he struggled for control, eliciting a crow of victory from the pilot as his side. The Blue pilot's face was illuminated red by the interior of his simulator, no doubt enlightening him as regards how many kinds of dead he was, as he saw Talon's blue fist punch into the air over one of the simulator banks.

The Meth Baron. I'll need to remember that one, he thought, and looked back to the barkeep, who was chuckling and shaking his head. "I should cue up Two at Titan," he said, and Alex grinned. It was a heavily asymmetrical encounter, pitting a full squadron against just a lone pair of wingmen, but the Two were in fighters two generations or greater more advanced than the full squadron. As a serious simulation, it pitted the Two in fully-modern fighters against the Twelve two generations back; somewhat less seriously, it pitted the Two in various thought-up sci-fi alien starfighters (or, with suitable tweaking of the simulator booths, fictional human starfighters,) against a full squadron of the TCA's best.

"I would love to see that," Alex said, "But I'm afraid I need the Two."
"Oh? What do you mean, Cap'n?" Alex grinned.
"I need my pilots back, you may have seen them? Tall, blue, elf-eared and anime haired?" He couldn't help but smirk, as the barkeep raised an eyebrow.
"They're yours?"
Alex nodded. "Afraid so. Sorry. Did they have anything to drink? What's the damage?"

The man snorted. "No need. They didn't order anything 'cept water, and look at this crowd they brought in 'afore 06:00." He swept his arm, indicating the room. "So even if they'd drank a bottle of Dom P 2041 each, it'd be on the house." Alex laughed, and nodded.
"Thanks," he said, heading through the crowd, arrowing his way through the enthusiastic pilots to behind the simulators. He could have pulled rank, but he preferred it this way; in the back, he saw that it had apparently been a battle of the sexes; all of the Red pilots were women. Talon was grinning fiercely, even despite the boisterous back-slap she took from the Latina who had stepped in to give her full control, while Spiral was smirking with crossed arms.

He slipped up behind them both, and placed his hands on the handle-like projections on the back of their armor. Both of them gave a slight start, looking at him, and he grinned, addressing them in English, "Having fun?"
Spiral laughed, and Talon grinned. "A lot of it," she said, her grin broad and proud. He chuckled.
"Glad to hear it, but we're lifting ship in about two thousand solon, we need to go."
"You tracked us down to tell me that?" Talon laughed. "I knew that, we were going to do one more match and then run back to our ships."

Alex snorted, and shook his head, grinning. "Sure. Did you forget your comms back on Coldfjord?"
Talon blinked, and a slightly darker blue shade flushed through her cheek, as she and Spiral shared a guilty look, and swallowed. "Good thing we didn't step up the schedule," Alex said.
"Yeah, we forgot 'em in my cabin," Spiral admitted, and Alex chuckled, shaking his head, tugging on the handles on their suits, pulling the two to their feet, without complaint from them.

"Good thing you two are my best pilots and two of my best friends," he said, "or I'd probably have to cite you for failing to keep your comms on your persons," he said with a smirk, stepping back. The assorted human pilots were all looking at him, and he grinned.
"Sorry, ladies, I need my Loroi back. I do hope you enjoyed their company," he said, and the pilots laughed, as Alex, Talon and Spiral slipped out from behind the crowd behind the simulator booths, two of the observers slipping into the emptied seats, and the trio left the bar.

Pulsar was, to Alex's surprise, not quite alone on the bench; while a number of onlookers were staring at her, curious and or warily, a teenaged girl with what appeared to be temporary tattoos and dyed, flourescent purple hair, showing blonde at the roots who just screamed 'rebellious navy brat' was sitting next to her. They didn't appear to be conversing, but when Pulsar stood up, she nodded to the girl, who nodded back at her, as Pulsar fell in line with the trio and Alex led the way back towards the corvette docks. He switched back to Trade. "Any trouble, Pulsar?"

"Remarkably few people are inclined to begin trouble with someone who is openly armed," Pulsar replied, with a slightly smug smirk. "I received quite a lot of stares, and a few people attempted to speak to me in what I believe was an atrocious attempt to utilize the Trade language, after it became clear I do not speak your language."
Alex laughed, as Talon asked, "What was with the girl?"
"I am uncertain," Pulsar admitted. "She wears her hair like a warrior but is yet too young."
Alex snorted. "Pulsar, she's older than you are," he said with a smirk, looking back, and Pulsar crossed her arms.
"Regardless, I am grown and she is not," Pulsar pointed out, to which Alex could only give an ambivalently agreeing shrug and nod. "She came upon me sitting outside the pilot's club, saw that I was alone, and sat next to me. She made no attempt to utilize the Trade language, and after she tried to see if I spoke your language, simply used a data tablet for the majority of the time, then put it away when its power source appeared to fail."

Alex absorbed Pulsar's report, and nodded. "Fair enough. So, had fun," he asked, and Talon and Spiral grinned at him. Pulsar shrugged.
"My time sitting on the bench was brief enough to not be boring, and distantly interesting in that I was able to observe a great many humans at once," Pulsar reported, to which Spiral chuckled.
"It was good to get off the ship with my sister," she said, reaching over, grabbing the handle on Talon's armor and tugging on it affectionately, to which Talon grinned. Alex chuckled at that.
"It really would be good to arrange shore leave," he said. "I'll have to ask Kelly if there were about a dozen more where she came from, perhaps standing around unattended."
The three Loroi with him all looked confused, and Alex grinned, shaking his head. "Nevermind, it's a human joke." They were reaching the end of the promenade, and Alex pointed to the gantry to Coldfjord. "Go grab your comm, and don't forget it again," he said; chagrined, Talon nodded, saluting and dashing down the gantry with Spiral at her heels, leaving Alex chuckling and shaking his head.

After Talon had left, Pulsar snorted softly. "Do you really intend not to chastise Arirr Talon because she is your friend?"
Alex looked back, and arched an eyebrow; presumably, Talon or Spiral had relayed what he had said to Pulsar at some point, telepathically. "Is there a standing regulation I'm unaware of requiring a crew member who was granted shore leave to retain possession of their communicator at all times?"

Pulsar's brow furrowed. "I honestly do not know," she admitted. "But it seems there should be."
Alex shrugged, and nodded. "Perhaps. But I'm not going to give her shit over it. Besides," he said, pulling out his tablet and checking the time, "the small arm drill should be underway by now. You have your sidearm. I have my sidearm. Guess who doesn't have her sidearm?"
Pulsar snickered, and pokered up as Talon came dashing back up the gangplank, struggling to get her tablet into her pouch on the run. They returned at an easy jog to Swiftwind, where the marines at the airlock saluted smartly. They passed inside, and Alex glanced back; Talon started to get a puzzled look on her face, then a worried one, as the airlock cycled.

Inside was the standard flurry of silent activity that Jardin knew was typical of Loroi vessels, but with a particularly human twist; twenty crew lined the entry hall, standing at parade rest, all of them with pulse carbines slung, standing for inspection. One of the gunners was going up and down the ranks with a tablet, a full-sized rifle slung over her back. Directly across from the airlock was Jade Disk, looking rather more like a Marine PFC than a doctor with her buzzcut head and the carbine slung across her armor. She interrupted the gunner doing the tally, snapping to attention and raising her arm in a smart, salute, calling aloud "Captain on deck!"

The entire company came to attention smartly, turning to salute, including the gunner taking the tally. He smartly saluted in turn, and said "As you were." Turning back to what she was doing, the gunner switched to Trade, demanding that each Loroi in line present arms for inspection, and ticking off something on her tablet in turn. Alex stood his ground, keeping Pulsar and Talon with him.

"Captain, sir! Small arms drill; present arms!"
Alex reached into the front of his greatcoat, pulling his new rail-pistol from the holster, and flipped it around, presenting it grip-first to the gunner, who ticked off something with her stylus. Beside him, he imagined Talon getting a sinking feeling, as the gunner continued on, demanding Pulsar present her arms and being shown the other gunner's sidearm in turn, and then got to Talon, who sighed. "I'm not armed," Talon admitted, and the gunner looked her up and down.
"Unacceptable. There's a small arms drill on, what if were being boarded?!" she said, sharply, and pointed aft. "Get your ass to the armory and draw a weapon immediately, pilot!"

Talon snapped smartly to attention, saluted, and dashed off aft. Alex grinned, and headed forward; the forward corridor had more of the same, and on the bridge he noted that the command crew were all wearing their sidearms. Beryl, Tempo and Kelly were sitting on the observation couches; the former two were openly armed. He couldn't tell if Kelly was wearing a sidearm under her TCA jumpsuit or not, not that she would have been subjected to the drill. Fireblade was stalking up and down the bridge, inspecting armaments. Kelly seemed to be writing on her tablet, but when Alex sat next to her, she set it down and produced a mug of - a sniff confirmed - tea from somewhere. "Tea, Captain?"
"Thank you, Ensign," he said, taking the mug. "Keeping tally?" The redhead smiled.
"No sir, I'm just observing." She nodded at Beryl. "She's keeping tally."

Alex nodded, and stood up, crossing to the other couch on the other side of the bridge entrance. Tempo and Beryl slid to the edges, making room for him to sit between them, and he smiled at both of them. It is so weird seeing Beryl wearing a gun, he thought. "What's the situation," he asked.
"Until you returned with Talon," Beryl said, chipper, "Absolutely everyone passed the weapons drill flawlessly. With Talon having failed to even be armed, I suspect we're going to all have to present arms again."
"Oh, goodie. That's going to make her popular," Alex said with a grin, eliciting a mirthful smile from Beryl and and roll of the eyes from Tempo.

"You could deem it acceptable," the experienced diplomat pointed out, and Alex shrugged.
"Sure, I could, but I'm not gonna undermine Swift Harpoon in the middle of an exercise. She's handling things just fine."

Fifteen minutes later, the entire crew had successfully presented arms in one pass, and Swift Harpoon turned to Alex, saluting. "Captain, small arms drill has been completed. The crew is armed and prepared for action inside and out."
"Excellent," he said, nodding to Swift Harpoon; he had been watching every second, and approved of the work she had done, standing up from his seat on the couch and crossing to the bridge, stepping up to the middle platform. "Have you informed Luna-9 of our pending departure?"
She nodded, and elaborated, "I have, sir. Umbilicals are detached, gantries are standing ready to lift us to launch height, the crew are at their posts."

Alex couldn't have asked for more, and he nodded to her. "I have the bridge, Swift Harpoon; you are relieved."
She saluted smartly, and he returned it. "I stand relieved, Captain; you have the bridge" she said, turning and walking down from the platform, as Alex walked to the middle, keying the intercom.
"First shift, assume your stations," he said. In a flash, Beryl, Tempo, Talon, Fireblade, and Pulsar moved up; Beryl slid into the seat next to him; Tempo the one behind him; Fireblade crossed her arms behind her back, standing on the platform by the security console catty-cornered behind him; Pulsar relieved the night shift gunnery chief, and Talon took the helm. They had already been on the bridge, and moments later the rest of the first shift materialized from the bridge door, sliding past the outgoing third shift, relieving the rest of the shift and taking their stations.

He was proud, and terrified. He didn't know what was going to happen; he knew that Commodore Fragile Storm wasn't so dense as to try and place Opalstorm, or someone like her, in command of his corvettes, after she had made herself so hated in such a colossally short time that only strong discipline had prevented her from being shot, but he knew he was due to be relieved of command of the corvettes. Past-due, really; he seemed to have fallen into a lull, for which he was glad. He had one chance, at least, to see the crew off. The chatter of calm, quiet professionalism surrounded him. It wasn't perfect, he knew; they were not yet the battle-hardened, veteran crew they sounded like, and they could break if stressed hard enough, but they'd come through the fire and been hardened by it.

He took a sip from his cup of tea, finishing it off, and looked back; Kelly was right behind him in a flash, with a tray, taking it from him. He noticed with a raised eyebrow that she had also provided a mug to both Beryl and Tempo. When did that happen? and they handed her the empties, turning and withdrawing with them into his office.

"I can't imagine Stillstorm having a cup of tea on the bridge," he admitted, quietly, and beside him Beryl flashed a warm smile at him. I'd have preferred coffee, but I'm not gonna argue with tea. A glance down at his console showed no problems. It was a small ship, and many of the officers by necessity wore more than one hat simultaneously. Fortunately, with the refit class came adaptable command deck consoles that could accommodate. "All stations, report readiness; Control One, standing by."
Behind him, Tempo spoke up, smoothly, saying "Control Two, standing by; Intelligence standing by."
At his right, Beryl spoke up, cheerfully. "Tactical standing by; Communications standing by."
Ahead of him and to the left, Talon lifted her head; if any hint of chagrin remained from her gaffe earlier, she didn't show it. "Operations standing by; Navigation One standing by."
"Security standing by," Fireblade spoke, gravely from behind.
"Navigation Two on standby -" the Tenoin to Talon's left, formerly Spiral's position before he'd needed her to take control of Coldfjord.
"Systems control, standing by; all umbilicals are cut, reactors one and two are hot and prepared to give full power, all drive systems are primed and ready to go, all primary and secondary systems are operational," intoned the engineer to the far right and back towards the observer's couches, and after her, the sensors officer reported she was standing by.
"Gunnery Control, standing by; all weapon systems are operational and ready for service." Pulsar, to his left along the port wall, forward of him, followed by the four turret gunners under her control.
"Captain; all command stations are standing by," Tempo said, "and all internal compartments report readiness. Ship is ready for launch."

Alex closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He worried this might be the last time he heard the crew go through this routine. "Comm, please get me Luna-9 space control," he said, and Beryl nodded.
"Comm, aye," she said quietly, tapping on her console. In a few moments, a holographic pane appeared in the air in front of him, offset between him and Beryl and back a bit.
In the holo-pane was a view of a human man with blond hair high and tight, blue eyes, chiseled Scandinavian looks, wearing a TCA uniform. He looked up, into what had to be his camera. "Swiftwind, this is Luna-9, we read you, over." His voice had a high, musical tonality to it that Jardin had a feeling the Loroi surrounding him probably found attractive.
This would have been explained in advance, of course, but there were formalities to follow when not in an emergency. "Copy, Luna-9, this is Captain Alexander Jardin, commander Swiftwind. Requesting permission to launch, over."
The man - was he Danish? A Swede? Norwegian maybe? Nodded at Alex, tapping on his console. "Confirmed Swiftwind. Flight lanes are clear, we're putting you in high Lunar orbit, over."
Talon looked back over her shoulders. "Captain, we've received a flight plan," she reported, and Alexander nodded.
"Confirmed, helm." He looked back to the Scandinavian man on the holo-pane. "Copy, Luna-9, we have our flight plan; our airlock is secure. Please make fast and stow your boarding ramp, and raise the gantry, over." I'm going to savor this; it may be the last time I do it. He could have had Beryl or Tempo take care of this, but he wanted to do it himself.
"Copy that, Swiftwind, over."

He glanced to the far right side of the bridge; above the head of the sensor operators, he saw the boarding ramp's far and near bulkheads begin to close, warning lights flashing in the corridor outside and the boarding gantry both. The TCA Marine on station stepped away and turned around, facing the ship, and raised her hand in a crisp salute. When the bulkhead had shut, warning lights began to flash throughout the dry-dock the ship was cradled in, and the boarding gantry's universal docking collar withdraw from the ship. Alex imagined he could hear a hiss of the miniscule traces of atmosphere that hadn't been pumped out, and the ramp turned, swiveling back along the station, its segments aligning horizontally, straight once more.

The Scandinavian man on the other end of the comms gave him a running commentary, "Boarding ramp stowed, we are raising the gantry, Swiftwind." The corridor outside dropped out of view as the adjustable docking arms holding Swiftwind in the deep corvette bay (really a destroyer bay, until the TCA heavy destroyers had exceeded their usable length,) began to lift Swiftwind up and out of the deep bay in which she was cradled, lifting her to the surface. At the top, the massive gantry began to rotate, pointing Swiftwind into her launch path, the slow, deliberate movements of the gantry sending heavy, industrial thunking sounds, distant and muffled, echoing through the ship in what Alex felt was a highly satisfactory manner.

He couldn't quite hear the docking clamps disengage, or see them - as they were all at the bottom of the vessel, but the ship shuddered ever-so-slightly, moving a few centimeters. "Swiftwind, the gantry is raised and we have released docking clamps; you are resting on the cradle. You are cleared for launch on reaction control and may proceed to main drives at -" he faltered for a moment, blinking and double-taking something on his screen, "fifteen percent thrust at two-point-five kilometers. Launch window is five minutes beginning from my mark." He waited five seconds. "Mark!"

"Copy that, Luna-9. Swiftwind out," Alex said, and Beryl closed the communications channel, without needing a prompt. "Talon, take us out."
"Helm, aye," Talon said in response, her fingers dancing over her console. An almost-imperceptible sound, more the suggestion of sound than actual rumble of it, vibrated through the command center as Talon applied thrust, and the view of Luna-9 sprawling all around began to drop away, the glittering black horizon dropping slowly away, then picking up speed, all around as the sleek corvette lifted up and away, gaining speed as Talon fired the RCS thrusters hard, giving the vessel vertical and horizontal momentum.

At 2.5Km distance, Talon smirked. "We're clear, Captain, proceeding to main drives at fifteen percent." She had already punched in the course, and merely told the computer to execute. Going from RCS thrust to main drives, even at fifteen percent, was a massive jump in acceleration, Swiftwind surging forward at five and a quarter gravities of thrust.

Quietly, Alexander murmured, "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things."
It was quiet, very quiet, and in English, but Beryl turned to look at him, an amused look on her face. "What was that, Captain?"

He chuckled right, the ears. J.R.R. Tolkein would be proud. Alex turned partly in his seat, looking into the white-haired Loroi's eyes. "A poem, Beryl; High Flight. It was Captain Carl Hamilton's favorite, and he read it to the crew of Bellarmine before we undocked on her last voyage."
Beryl smiled, shaking her head. "Poetry is a strange art form, but it is art. What is the context?"

Alex thought for a moment; he smiled. After Captain Hamilton had read the poem, he'd been taken by it, and had asked Hamilton about it. In response, the Captain had given him a book - a hardcopy book - to read, about the author of the poem. Glancing around, he saw the faces of his crew; the interest of Beryl and Tempo, information-voracious xenophile and culturally-sensitive diplomat, was perfectly understandable. Fireblade was now sitting at her console, but had turned around, and also appeared to be paying attention; to his surprise, Talon had turned her head halfway back and was lending an ear. Kelly, at the back of the bridge, was leaning forward, on the edge of her seat, even as she fiddled with her tablet. The rest of the crew, though, were looking at him slightly askance, and he understood; Loroi were a very literal race by default, with little in the way of poetic abstractions in their culture, a situation exacerbated by the young age of them all.

"It was written by an aviator; a warrior," Alex explained, "Pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jr, who flew during the largest and most destructive conflict Earth has experienced. This was a very long time ago, the age of piston-driven internal combustion engines, of aircraft which were propelled through the air by spinning impellers mechanically driving air backwards, over the vehicle's lifting surfaces, a conflict which we refer to as the Second World War." Of the Loroi present, only Beryl seemed to understand what he was describing; even Tempo and Talon seemed lost.

Right, history is not their strong suit. "It was a very long time ago," he elaborated with a smile, "the second age of powered, heavier-than-air flight. The poem was inspired when he flew his aeroplane to an altitude of ten kilometers - which is not much for us today, of course, but in that creaking, steel and aluminum firespitter, he was already three hundred meters above his craft's operational ceiling and still climbing, and he was inspired to write a poem by being high enough to perceive the curvature of the Earth. That was a big deal in those days, before we'd even sent a man beyond the atmosphere."

Alex felt a vibration in his left cargo pouch, and pulled it out; it was showing a black-and-white photograph, very grainy, of a Supermarine Spitfire in flight, its canopy open, above a field of roiling cloud-cover. "Anyway, even if the context is outdated, as ten kilometers is nothing to us, it has remained to this day a favorite of human pilots and starship navigators - to 'slip the surly bonds of earth' is a metaphor, for the occupation and act of defying gravity and natural, groundbound ways, of taking to flight."

A slight chime at Talon's console got everyone's attention for a moment, and when he looked back to the forward view, with its flight information, he could clearly see that Swiftwind had reached Lunar orbit. "Captain, we've reached orbit," Talon said, and he nodded.
"Very well, helm. Take us back to orbiting Earth, match orbits with Retribution. Communications, please inform Retribution we're coming in and request permission to dock for a prisoner transfer."

With the brief blunder of trying to explain the whispered poetry out of the way, Alexander pressed himself back into his chair, glancing down at his console, and then looking around his ship, for what he feared might be her last flight as his ship. Everyone was focusing on their tasks, even the crew who had no real expectation of being needed such as the gunners, and he smiled as he heard Beryl quietly communicating with Retribution's comms officer.
Well, at least we can make a good show of it if this is the last flight for me, he thought.
Last edited by ShadowDragon8685 on Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

harlequin2262
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2015 3:08 am

Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by harlequin2262 »

I tend to be a little wary of the
Alien: What is this strange human custom called <reallybasicthing>
Human: Well, let me tell you about it in a way that is really aimed towards provoking thought in the human audience.

But you've done it elegantly, Dragon. You've picked your examples well.

One thing that did throw me for a second. Was Jardin speaking the poem in trade? Did that explanation exist without the Loroi knowing the actual poem, as it was spoken in english?

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

harlequin2262 wrote:I tend to be a little wary of the
Alien: What is this strange human custom called <reallybasicthing>
Human: Well, let me tell you about it in a way that is really aimed towards provoking thought in the human audience.

But you've done it elegantly, Dragon. You've picked your examples well.
Thank you, thank you. I'm not really aiming anything towards provoking thoughts in the human audience, I'm anticipating how Loroi would react.
One thing that did throw me for a second. Was Jardin speaking the poem in trade? Did that explanation exist without the Loroi knowing the actual poem, as it was spoken in english?
Jardin was speaking in English when he quoted High Flight. Beryl and Jardin's circle of friends speak English. The rest of the crew may have been more confused by it; Beryl and Jardin's pals weren't confused so much as Beryl was inquisitive.

JQBogus
Posts: 157
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by JQBogus »

Could be that someone (Beryl) translated and communicated via Sanzai to the non-English speaking Loroi present.

Krulle
Posts: 1413
Joined: Wed May 20, 2015 9:14 am

Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Krulle »

Seeing that the Loroi can learn using telepathic transfer, I assume that at least first bridge shift knows (basic) English...

Heh, punishment through neglecting to tell her an exercise is coming up...
How devious of Alexander...
Vote for Outsider on TWC: Image
charred steppes, borders of territories: page 59,
jump-map of local stars: page 121, larger map in Loroi: page 118,
System view Leido Crossroads: page 123, after the battle page 195

ShadowDragon8685
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 5:01 am

Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

JQBogus wrote:Could be that someone (Beryl) translated and communicated via Sanzai to the non-English speaking Loroi present.
Poetry doesn't usually translate well at all, I thought.
Krulle wrote:Seeing that the Loroi can learn using telepathic transfer, I assume that at least first bridge shift knows (basic) English...
Hrm, that could well be. Either way, though, they'd be looking at him funny for speaking non-literal nonsense.
Heh, punishment through neglecting to tell her an exercise is coming up...
How devious of Alexander...
Yep.

harlequin2262
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2015 3:08 am

Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by harlequin2262 »

If nothing else, the general transliteration can be applied, even if the meter and rhyme is wasted. If they heard him speak it though, at least a measure of it could be retained.
I imagine poetry to be something the Loroi struggle with as well, being as rooted as it is with creative mistruths.
I didn't realise that the primary harem spoke English, though, although after the period of the time spent together, it's a logical step, particularly for Beryl and Tempo.
"I'm not really aiming anything towards provoking thoughts in the human audience, I'm anticipating how Loroi would react."
Oh, of course. But the relative nativity of the Loroi does lend itself to an examination of the fundamentals of a given poem/practise. Forces the reader and writer to examine that basics of their society. Smooshing THAT together with the already existing culture clash is very fun to watch.

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