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 »

Glad you're enjoying it. I kind of liked the idea of the weary, put-upon bureaucrat who is saddled with the responsibility of trying to provide some kind of oversight for an irresponsible, irascible Jardin who just seems to find success at every turn, even when he's ignoring the odds harder than a Corellian attempting to fly an asteroid thicket.

And that made me wonder, why is she like that, and it hit me; because Jardin is doing the kinds of things she wanted to do when she was younger, but she learned to play it safe, to be the dutiful staff officer as the path to get promoted. As a consequence, she never took risks, never directly commanded a vessel in combat; she's a flag officer's flag officer, the kind of person who is, in fact, instrumental in winning wars, but who seldom, if ever, receives any personal glory; being too highly-placed and too behind-the-lines to get any glory for personally leading others into battle (let alone throwing herself into battle,) but still too low to win any acclaim as the admiral or general in charge of a theater of operation.

She's frustrated because Jardin is doing the kinds of thing her heart is telling her she should be doing, should have been doing sixty years ago. She's irritated because everyone she knew sixty years ago who actually did behave like Jardin is dead, because that's what happens to people who buck the rules and play at hero during a war with a ruthless, meat-grinder enemy. She's exasperated because he's actually doing things like bronco-busting dragon turtles, piloting absurd giant anthroform mecha into a fight with an enemy fleet (and winning,) taking command of a corvette in a crisis without any real claim to its command and somehow winding up with an entire fleet of the dinky little bastard ships following his orders, and now, apparently, he's arranged for a Umiak Superheavy and its escorts to be captured by an entire navy which combined shouldn't have been a match for it alone in a stand-up knock-down fight.

She's irritated because she's Happy Hogan and he's Tony Stark. She does what she should do, and all it gets her is mediocrity; importance, to be sure she is an important, highly-skilled, experienced and educated flag officer, but not the kind of importance that gets you acclaim, just the kind of importance where, if you suddenly die, people notice a distinct dip in performance and replace you when they trace it back to your absence. Meanwhile, Jardin is running around doing things that should get him killed; any number of the things he's done should have gotten him killed, yet somehow he seems to always be able to cheat death and pull an amazing, mind-blowing victory out of the jaws of the cold grinding of inevitable defeat.


Or at least, that's how I see it.
(The sexual frustration may or may not be a part of it. But it's definitely all that stuff above, too, especially the deep-down envy of his youth, dynamism, and the fact that he's actually on a bridge, however small a bridge, ordering crew around, and they're following his orders.)

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

Post by Krulle »

Hey, this is a fan-fic. Sexual tensions should never be actively excluded.
There may nothing happen (and if you remember, she is easily 70 years older than Alexander), and there may be absolutely no intention by either sides, but there is no need to write so.

Leave such things to the minds of the reader. Makes for better stories.
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

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

Post by Hālian »

Wait, dragon turtles?
Image
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ShadowDragon8685
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Carl Miller wrote:Wait, dragon turtles?
Read saint of m's original post at the top. Jardin was doing some cultural liasing with the Barsam when a Dragon Turtle, which I am personally unfamiliar with but which I imagine (from the description of how Fragile Storm, a Loroi naval commander, both recognized them instantly and mused that it would ordinarily take a main battle tank to put one down,) is some kind of huge, armored land-beast, very tough, and dangerous. And he apparently leapt right atop it and steered it off a ravine, Aragorn-on-the-worg style.

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saint of m
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by saint of m »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Carl Miller wrote:Wait, dragon turtles?
Read saint of m's original post at the top. Jardin was doing some cultural liasing with the Barsam when a Dragon Turtle, which I am personally unfamiliar with but which I imagine (from the description of how Fragile Storm, a Loroi naval commander, both recognized them instantly and mused that it would ordinarily take a main battle tank to put one down,) is some kind of huge, armored land-beast, very tough, and dangerous. And he apparently leapt right atop it and steered it off a ravine, Aragorn-on-the-worg style.
More or less. I was thinking more cowboy on a steroyde infused bull, but same effect. As for the creature, I made it up. Though there are some mythological creatures that fall into that title in far Eastern myth (and the thing that taught Ang Energy Bending in Avatar: The Last Air Bender), so far we haven't been given much on the wildlife on most of the planets here, so I made a predator that is what you think it would be when you mix a turtle with a typical dragon.

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

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

I do hope these little vignettes are enjoyable. This one is wordy wordy-wordy, and gets kind of serious, so I apologize in advance if it's not as funny or worth reading.


1,651 days after first contact with the Loroi Union.

Captain Alexander Horatio Jardin looked at himself in the mirror, and tugged on the collar of his spiffy dress uniform jacket, swallowing nervously. It was a hybrid - Fleet uniform underneath, but with a Scout Corps greatcoat and scarf. The decorations on his chest were many; Scout Corps insignia, Fleet medals, Loroi and Barsam decorations - he was due for another one, in fact, he'd just learned, from Fragile Storm.

He was exhausted. He'd been up all night answering questions, had caught about three hours' rack time, and then been blasted out of his borrowed bunk by a bugler playing Reveille, given a whirlwind promotion, and told to get ready to attend a parade. It had been a rough night, too; a parade of military-intelligence types, superior officers, and the like; some of them had been calm and listened to everything he had to say, some of them had all but shouted questions at him and made him stand-to attention with vigorous Yes Sir and No Sir answers. Some of them had even played good officer, bad officer on him, making him feel rather more like the subject of a criminal interrogation than a naval officer being debriefed. One of them had even implied that he'd somehow been involved in Bellarmine's destruction to position himself as the first sole Ambassador to the Loroi Union for personal reasons.

Alex had almost lost his cool at that one, but managed to avoid having himself thrown in irons for assaulting a superior (or rather, higher-ranking officer,) by trying to imagine what Fireblade would have done; with challenging him to a duel (and subsequently compressing him into a block of dirty carbon with his mind) out of the question, she would have stood there and bore it like she was trying to make herself the dictionary definition of the word "stoicism;" so he did.

As it had turned out, he was entirely right; Fireblade, Beryl, Tempo, and Talon had all got the same treatment, more or less. Even the commanding officers - or rather, the most-senior enlisted (equivalent) left in charge of the other corvettes he'd led out of the Umiak ambush to draw the Umiak away from the foundering big vessels - had gotten nearly as vigorous a debriefing, and he didn't even know most of them very well.

Fireblade had, indeed, stoiced her way through her debriefing like a champion; it made sense. She must have had a lot of experience being yelled at by loud, angry superior sergeant (equivalents) as a younger warrior. Beryl had defused all the heat with her irrepressibly bubbly personality, Tempo had arguably gotten as much information from her interrogators as she had given them, and Talon had played the "don't look at me, I'm just the pilot" card, talking their ears off at length and breadth about piloting matters and claiming utter ignorance of anything else.

It was actually kind of bittersweet, in a way. Somehow, the five of them had become a team, like he and Ellen and a few of the other were years ago. He was already trying to work out ways to prevent his small group from being broken up, as he flicked the collar on his jacket.

First step: Surviving the full report he would need to be giving Fragile Storm. He thought he had a good poker face, and enough reasons to look grave that he could get away with it. He could not.
"What seems to be wrong?" Beryl or Tempo always seemed to pick up on it, so much so that he was starting to privately wonder if their long association with him was starting to let their telepathy work on him despite the innate human resistance to it. He looked back at Beryl, who had asked the question, over the shoulder of himself and the yeoman who was ensuring his uniform was presentable. Beryl wasn't in formal dress uniform; the small corvettes they'd escaped in hadn't had the right formal uniforms aboard, but Alex had assured them that Loroi duty uniforms were plenty showy to attend a parade with.

At least Fireblade had agreed not to wear her combat armor; though Jardin himself felt he could have used a suit when explaining things to Fragile Storm. He let out a sigh. "Fragile Storm is not going to like what I have to say. I'm worried she'll compress me into a ball of dirty carbon."
Beryl smiled at him, in the mirror; she was affixing an ornament in her hair; a birthday present he'd gotten for her last year, a relatively simple comb, but encrusted with her namesake gemstone. "Fireblade didn't," she pointed out, and Alex snorted.

"Fireblade likes me," he pointed out. Fireblade had tolerated him for quite some time, but after the first time they'd wound up in a fight at personal scale and he'd turned up next to her with a rifle he'd taken off a downed Loroi, she'd warmed up to him. Then after their stunt with the giant robots, she'd upgraded to considering him a friend.
Beryl shrugged, seemingly conceding the point; that his existence seemed to irritate Commodore Fragile Storm was something he was displeased with, and he tried to get on her good side, but it was kind of hard when she seemed to consider his existence somehow mildly annoying. "You seem to be right, she probably won't be pleased. But then, nothing truly seems to please her," she pointed out. "And while she may likely find it upsetting that humanity was, at one point, actively attempting to ally itself with the first of whichever empire they encountered - us or the shells - the choice has been made, and rather... Decisively," she said, with a smirk, her use of the definitive instead of a prevaricative 'seems to have been made' most telling, even if they were speaking English, not Trade.

"Eh... It was inevitable, really," Jardin said, biting his lip. "Kelly?"
"Sir!" The impeccably silent young Fleet yeoman; Ensign Amelia Kelly - a sleek, twenty-something redhead - snapped to attention. It made him moderately uncomfortable, and after a moment, he remembered to say "At ease." She relaxed her stance a fraction of an inch, and he said, "Umiak or Loroi?"
"Loroi, sir."

"What's your reasoning? The real reason," he said, and she blinked, expression finally cracking slightly, her eyes glancing towards Beryl's image in the mirror in front of him. "Go on, Kelly, the unfiltered version, not the for-the-brass version."

"Um..." Kelly scratched at her hair, and he coughed, sighing.
"Permission granted to speak freely, Ensign."
"Frankly, sir? She reminds me of my big sister," Kelly said, nodding her head to Beryl, who actually looked slightly flattered by the comparison, "and the Umiak remind me of the cockroaches that kept getting into the kitchen at night when I was growing up. If someone told me I had to shoot her on behalf of some horrible bug-monster, I'd turn around and shoot him."

Alex grinned at Beryl in the mirror. "There's lots of better, more rational arguments to make, too; humans may find the Loroi's refusal to respect neutrality to be a war-crime, but the way the shells treat their friends is almost as bad, even if it is also how they treat themselves. If we threw in with the Umiak and won, we'd be effectively enslaved, and while slavery might be a reversible condition... Frankly, the chances of breaking free of the Umiak if they win are less than our chances of getting through this Charlie Foxtrot by siding with the Loroi. But on the whole, if we tried to side with the Umiak, I have the strong feeling there'd be a swift change of the regime which made the decision anyway."

Beryl glanced at him, her expression half-dubious. He shrugged. "It's true. What if it were reversed; a small handful of Loroi planets, you get out there into space and found us locked in a existential conflict with the shells, and you were smack in the middle, so staying out of it wasn't an option. Who do you pick?"
It was a subtle critique of the Loroi politics; he knew it, and Beryl knew it, though Ensign Kelly, he figured wouldn't get it. By positing the Loroi smack in the middle of a Umiak-Human conflict, he'd put them in a place where they'd either choose a side or it would be chosen for them by the Umiak annexing them; the unspoken sentiment being that the humans would respect the Loroi's right to remain neutral, even if it was strategically disadvantageous. He also knew she'd tolerate that kind of barbed political commentary from him.

She took a while to answer, but he could see in her eyes that it was just rationalizing, trying to apply her titanic intellect to what was, fundamentally, an emotional decision; one which had been made instinctually within an instant of him positing the question, and Beryl finally sighed. "I suppose you are right. It would be very difficult to convince Loroi to side with a species so fundamentally... Repulsive; let alone to side with themagainst one so similar to us, especially one where half the population triggers protective instincts in us. Even if it were a decision made for sound strategic reasons, it would be immensely unpopular. There would be unrest, the Emperor might face a challenge for her position. Whole worlds might break away to choose to side with humanity over the shells. Morale would fall."

Alex grinned back at her. "And you've just summed up, in a nutshell, why this was pretty much inevitable. Swap the names around, and your statement's pretty much spot-on. Military thinkers and politicians may think with their heads, but as a whole, a people think with their hearts; every people I've seen so far, in fact. And telling humans that we're going to help the horrible space bugs murder the blue space elves would be a hard sell, even if the Loroi were hell-bent on exterminating the Umiak and had started the conflict for no other reason than to squish them and the shells were as pacifistic as the Barsam... Not an impossible sell, under those conditions, but given how the Umiak treat their friends, let alone their enemies?"

Ensign Kelly looked absolutely shocked, taking a half-step back, but Beryl simply rolled her eyes, laughing and shaking her head; he'd long go explained just how closely Loroi resembled elves from human myths, and she - and precious few others, primarily the Loroi who had been his escorts since the Tempest - he felt comfortable enough with to joke about such things.
"I suppose if you told Loroi warriors we were going to wage war on a race which half looks like they could be odd sisters, and half looks like the menfolk we're raised to protect, it would, indeed,be a hard sell."

The door opened with a chime and a whisking sound, and Alex's eyes flicked to it; Tempo walked in, her uniform's metal sections freshly polished, her hair in an elaborate coiffure, wearing an Imperial decoration, the earpiece that used to belong to Captain Ashrain, which the Emperor's hilariously-far-removed grand-niece had given her on a past escapade wherein Jardin's group had been ordered to protect her from an assassination attempt by what turned out to be a jealous rival. He grinned. "I thought you were embarrassed to wear that," he asked, and the diplomat fingered the golden, gleaming ornament somewhat self-consciously, replying in Trade; "It seems that I am less embarrassed by wearing Ashrain's gift than I am embarrassed at attending a formal event with only my duty uniform to represent the Union."

Jardin grinned. "It looks good on you. That's probably why she gave it to you." Tempo fingered the earpiece again, but the door whisked open again; Fireblade and Talon had turned up, the former wearing her service pistol; thus, it truly was a formal occasion, as Fireblade would normally have ignored the nominal requirement she wear her sidearm in favor of her telekinetic might, and left it in the armory.

She walked past him, raising her hand; he clasped it, firmly squeezing, and the Unsheathed who had been his bodyguard for years gave him a toothy grin, as her cool fingers wrapped around his, clenching firmly in turn. It was a brief, and very human gesture, one of comrades-in-arms, which they had first performed whilst piloting two enormous robots built by an Historian personality matrix who was, he had since discovered, the Historian version of a mad scientist; and hence, Jardin's favorite Historian by default. "It is good to see you held your tongue during the interrogation," she commented. "It would be unfortunate to see you heralded and disciplined in the same day."

Jardin snorted, and looked straight into her eyes. "I suppose they could have averaged it out by just hammering the medal straight into my chest," he said, getting a grin from the Unsheathed warrior. They let go of the grip as if by telepathic agreement, and he looked over at Talon. "Have you heard anything about Swiftwind," he asked, naming the ship he'd been commanding since that clusterfuck half a year ago.

The pilot nodded; her richly azure hair was now shockingly long, having decided to buck the trend and let her hair get long young; and styled into a mane of brilliant spikes, with the ice-blue bangs at the front of her head stiffened up and hanging loosely in front of her, matched by frosted tips on her spikes. She very much looked like an anime character, and he thought it suited her quite well - not to mention that it would make a hell of an impression with the brass, even moreso than Fireblade's mane of red spikes, thanks to the obvious dye-job. "I have. Per your instructions, the moment I was released, I began attempting to make contact, and this was accomplished with no difficulty at all. Acting-Mallas Swift Harpoon reports that repairs continue essentially as expected - to wit, very little real progress is being made, despite your fleet engineering corps' enthusiastic efforts to be of aid, both in attempts at locating usable material and parts, and in more direct engineering matters. Good progress is, however, being made in decontaminating Firelance's contaminated reactor bay, thanks to your engineers' access to heavy-duty radiation-shielded suits; they may be cumbersome, but they are apparently far more effective than the light-duty cleanup suits our corvettes had access to. To quote Firelance's Acting-Sienan Cloudskimmer, we might as well have gone in naked for all the good the light suits did, but your suits moved like you'd sent in power armored infantry instead of engineers."

"Um... They are power armor," Ensign Kelly pointed out. "Mark Five HEV suits do have power assist movement modules and a layer of reactive self-healing armor. After the Mark Four HECA came out, so many engineering squads were getting the quartermasters to 'misroute' the armor that the HEEV and HECA programs were merged in the Mark Five."

The four Loroi all stared at her as if she had been talking in Greek rather than English, so Jardin translated the jargon: "Hazardous Environment Combat Armor is what Marines wore; Hazardous Engineering Environment suits are what engineers wore. I was wearing a Mark Two HEEV when you guys saved my ass from dying in space. I'm guessing that HEV is just 'Hazardous Environment?" Kelly nodded at him, and Beryl's face lit up.

"Ah! This makes so much sense, thank you. Now I understand how your people can communicate large concepts rapidly without sanzai - telepathy," she corrected herself, using the English word, presumably for Kelly's benefit. "You simply condense the concept into much smaller, faster-to-pronounce sounds which all parties are familiarized with before conversation, not entirely unlike how the shells emphasize concepts for later reference in their rambling-speech. Not only does it suffice to speed up communication to acceptable rates in time-sensitive situations, it effectively helps to obfuscate your meaning to parties who are not already in possession of the requisite understanding, save by what they can glean from context."

The other three Loroi and Ensign Kelly all stared at the bubbly analyst, who was looking very cheerful. Jardin blinked. "I haven't explained the concepts of jargon or abbreviation or acronyms yet, have I. I'll have to do that later," he said with a chuckle. "But Loroi do that too; you just use numbers with prearranged meanings instead of shortening phrases or names to a number of letters pronounced phonetically." As Beryl blinked, digesting that, he turned to Talon. "And was there word about Reed," he asked; Talon, Tempo and Fireblade both grew stony-faced, while the tender-hearted Beryl got a worried look on her face.

"Unchanged," Talon said, gravely. "She continues her three-day cycle." Fireblade's fists clenched and relaxed, and Alex knew that the problem was: she was angry. Furious, simmering with hatred against an enemy she couldn't reach out and destroy with her bare hands or telekinetic powers. Ensign Kelly blinked, looking at her; her eyes focused on the pistol at Fireblade's hip, and how from her angle, it must have looked as if Fireblade were itching to draw her sidearm.

"It's a... Long story, Kelly," he explained. "One of our... Comrades has been wounded in action; mentally, by something the enemy did. We don't have any idea how to help her."
Kelly winced. "PTSD, huh? My... My grandfather was diagnosed with that... Even now, sometimes he wakes up and thinks he's still in the jungle, starts looking for his rifle, thinking the enemy are close."

That drew Fireblade's attention, and she turned, peering at Kelly. Alex gulped, afraid for a moment, but then saw something he wasn't expecting in Fireblade's eyes; recognition. "I do not know what that... Shortening means... But your... Grandsire sounds very much like he suffers as did many of the older warriors I knew when I was young."

"It stands for post-traumatic stress disorder," Jardin explained, quickly. "When exposed to a lot of, well, trauma, mental trauma - such as combat, but not exclusively so - humans can... Um..." He bit his lip; it was an uncomfortable subject. To his surprise, it was Fireblade who spoke first, not Kelly.
"Become withdrawn, irritable. Prone to reliving the past, or believing they are in the mdist of warfare even when at peace," she said, quietly. "Have a tendency to lash out, especially when surprised."
"Feel guilty about having lived when others did not," Kelly continued, quietly, "often turning to alcohol or other drugs as a coping mechanism."
"Be prone to nightmares," Alex said, quietly, thinking; it had been years, and he hadn't stopped seeing the destruction of Bellarmine in his sleep, or seeing Ellen's face in his nightmares. "Especially seeing a particularly traumatic experience; seeing the faces of lost comrades in your dreams."
Fireblade's eyes looked to him, and back to Kelly, who nodded, swallowing. "Having a hard time returning to a normal, civilian life; sometimes thinking of, or attempting to, end their own lives..." She swallowed, looking down, and Fireblade nodded.

"Yes, your grandsire sounds very much as if he... Suffers, as many of my elders do." The red-maned warrior was quiet, and Alex glanced towards her. He was certain that she was some kind of hurt along those same lines; he didn't like the thought of talking about it, but he knew if he spoke to a corpsman about the nightmares, they'd direct him to the nearest shrink, and he probably should find one to speak of.

Fireblade then cut the silence, speaking up. "I know of the ailment your grandsire suffers; we do not have a specific word for it, as you do. But it is known to us; that is not, however, what has afflicted Reed."
"What happened to hi- her," Kelly asked, and Fireblade took a deep breath. Jardin took one in, but she held her hand up, one finger outstretched, towards him.
"I do not consider it an unforgivable slight to express concern for a comrade mentioned in passing, you need not chastise your junior," she informed him. "As the... Ensign has some knowledge of ailments of the mind suffered by warriors, and clearly understands the gravity of them, I will explain. Reed," she said, quietly, "is not suffering from an injured psyche the way old warriors suffer. Her ailments are entirely induced externally. The shells," she said, almost spitting the word, "briefly captured her. Unknown to us at the time, before we rescued her, they tampered with her mind; how is not known to us. Half of one of your years ago, they somehow induced her, and other well-positioned Unsheathed in the fleet we were flying as part of to launch an attack upon our own vessels, from within. Reed was one of my direct pupils, and I taught her well. She was entirely successful in assassinating the command staff of the corvette we were flying on, in the midst of a briefing. When we found her, she was standing with a vacant look in her eyes, insensate and unable to do more than walk when her arm was pulled upon."

Kelly swallowed, hard, blinking and looking up into the imposingly tall Loroi's eyes. "God... How... How is she?"
Fireblade took a deep breath, and let it out in a long, slow sigh. "She is.. Unwell. As Talon alluded, her existence is one of a three-day cycle. For the rest of that day, under guard, she remained utterly insensate, helpless. On the second day, she awoke with memory loss, and was disoriented; she believed we were aboard the Tempest, the vessel which rescued Captain Jardin from the wreck of Bellarmine, preparing to depart with Jardin, and demands to know where she is and where I am. On the third day, she awakened with full recollection of the assassination she perpetrated and a sense of the time which had elapsed, and is overcome with guilt. On the fourth day, she was unresponsive, capable of walking and caring for herself only with direct instruction, and then only barely; and so it continued."
"She awoke with amnesia - memory loss - on the fifth day, and on the sixth, she remembered what had happened and felt awful about it," Kelly said, picking up quickly, nodding her head. Alex swallowed, hard.

Thinking about Reed was difficult. When he had first known her, she had seemed to be one of those types who had dedicated herself to being the perfect cog in the machine; an ideal staff officer, adjutant-type, with a perfect head for regulations and rules and seemingly a complete lack of personality outside pure professionalism. She was one of the few Loroi he had seen whose haircut would have passed muster even aboard a Scout Corps vessel; hers wouldn't have passed muster with Fleet, with the elaborate crown-hugging braid, but it would have passed muster in the Scout Corps; unlike Fireblade, whose massive mane of red required that her helmet was more of a face-and-side-of-head shield. She never spoke out of turn (not even telepathically,) she always had a razor-sharp attention to presentation and regulation, what humans called a 'Lifer' in military jargon, despite her young age.

As he'd gotten to know his group of Loroi ataches, though, he'd come to realize what she was; Fireblade's daughter. Perhaps not biologically (though he couldn't rule it out; he'd never gotten a straight answer on that,) but the older Unsheathed treated Reed less like any subordinate, and more like he believed a military mother would treat her daughter; she expected excellence from Reed, and inspired it out of it; moreover, Reed was, herself, a reason for Fireblade to be the absolute best she could be; someone to set an exemplary example for. It was a positive feedback loop: Fireblade the elder, the teacher, and Reed the dutiful student who pushed Fireblade to be the best role-model she could be.

He'd actually been worried that the red-haired Loroi would lose all of her cool after Reed's condition proved to be cyclical with no end in sight, but thankfully she'd held together. He made a heavy sigh, thinking about that, and looked down.
"Alex?" Beryl asked, looking at him, her voice suddenly serious. "You are unwell," she suggested, and Alexander shook his head.

"I'm not ill, I'm just thinking... Is this really an appropriate time to be holding a celebration? He looked up. "Sure, we captured one of the shells' TT-class superheavies and its escorts, but... A lot of good men and women - pink, tan, black and blue - died making it happen, and more still are badly injured. We've all lost a lot of friends getting this far, and there's no end in sight... A parade seems kind of like... Pissing into the wind," he said. The blank looks he got from the Loroi - and the ever-so-slight roll of the eyes from Yeoman Kelly - made him sigh. "I mean... It feels pointless, futile; premature, even... Even disrespectful. How can we smile and be happy right now, with Reed the way she is, with, with all the friends we've lost still gone... With the shells still out there, not to mention whoever really attacked Bell on the loose - and believe me, I still want to have a reckoning with whomever was behind that - and, and..." He shook his head, and sighed again. "It just seems like it's not right to have a parade."

Four hands reached for his shoulders, causing his eyebrows to raise. Even the Loroi who had been with him the longest usually hesitated to actually touch him, save Fireblade, who seemed to have reached an instinctive understanding of the utility of such gestures for expressions in the lack of telepathy. After an awkward moment wherein he was sure the four of them had a brief but high-density telepathic conversation, Tempo placed her hand firmly on his left shoulder, and Fireblade on his right.

"The celebrations are not for us, Alexander," Fireblade said. "We are the warriors, we are the ones who bear the burden of duty, and bear hardest the grief of its consequences."
"The celebrations are for everyone else," Tempo said, continuing. "They are to show those who are not bound, by caste or by oath to service, that we are standing for them; that we stand between them and harm, that we do our duty, even in the face of adversity they cannot, or do not wish to, imagine. That is why we put on elaborate decorations and inspiring uniforms, and march in lockstep. It's not for us; it's for everyone who is not us."

Alex blinked; his eyes flicking between Fireblade and Tempo, both of whom were older than he was and had been in military life quite a bit longer. He felt somewhat self-conscious; the lecture wasn't exactly inspiring, but it was... Affirming, in a way that made his guts squirm. Yeoman Kelly, on the other hand, snorted quietly, and her heard her mutter under her breath, "these girls get it."

She was quiet - closer to him than them, behind them. They probably wouldn't have heard if they were human, but the Loroi ears were not just for show. Tempo leaned to the side, an eyebrow raised. "We 'get' what?"

Jardin turned his head to see that Kelly had the universal 'oh shit' look on her face. "That earlier permission hasn't been withdrawn... What did you mean?"

"Um... What they were saying," she responded. "You're not from a military family, are you, Captain?"
Alex bit his lip, and shook his head. "No. My parents were an architect and a florist. Why?"

Just the slightest smile crossed Yeoman Kelly's face. "Because they get it. They understand," she said, by way of not elaborating very much.
"I thought your race did not have castes," Beryl asked, missing the tone of the conversation somewhat, but peering quizzically at Kelly all the same. "That you were not presumed to serve because you were born to those who did?"

Kelly shook her head. "Nah - I mean, no, we don't have that kind of formal expectation..."
"But even so, military 'families' do form," Alex explained, catching on. "Someone's father was a soldier, so his son becomes a soldier to be like his father, and his son becomes a soldier to be like his father, and so forth and so on..." He noted a raised eyebrow from Fireblade, and he weakly grinned at her. "I know you have a hard time believing it, but traditionally, the men are the warriors of humanity... Though we've more or less gone for gender equality in the last century and a half." He then looked back to Kelly. "But you were saying they... Understand something that I'm missing?"
"Not sure you're missing it, sir; just... It's the kind of thing you tend to get, instinctively, when you've been raised for it. I mean, there was never any question in my mind that I was going to join up somehow; dad was infantry, so was grandad, and great-granddad, and so forth and so on, all the way back to World War I. My mom was a medivac pilot, grandma was a combat fighter pilot, great-grandma was a carrier mechanic... Hell, my brother's the black sheep of the family; he didn't enlist in the military." She waited a beat. "He's NYPD SWAT."

Jardin glanced back to the four quizzically peering Loroi, and explained "The 'black sheep' is a human expression for someone who stands out; most sheep have fur as white as Beryl's hair, so a black sheep in a herd of white sheep is the standout, and usually it implies nonconformity in a negative sense. NYPD and SWAT are both acronyms; NYPD is the Police Department of New York City, the largest metropolis on the planet; civil policing is kept strictly separate, in most human nations, from military duties. The SWAT team is the Special Weapons and Tactics department, an armed-response group that use paramilitary training, equipment and tactics to respond to high-profile threats like heavily-armed gangs. She's saying that in a family of people devoted to military service, even the standout, the nonconformist, still chose a very similar life of armed service to his community, just that he did it by going into civil policing instead of a military service, and even when he did so, he wound up in the division of the police department that most closely resembles a military unit."

It's nice, for once, to be the one explaining things to my friends, instead of being the ignorant tourist who needs everything explained, Jardin thought to himself as the four blue aliens digested that tidbit. Fireblade looked as if she approved; Tempo and Beryl, of course, habitually seemed to be filing information away in their heads. Talon was listening quietly and respectfully, but Jardin couldn't tell if she was paying rapt attention, or had decided all this was ground-pounder stuff and she was tuning it out in favor of crunching numbers and envisioning flight in her head; either was equally possible for the pilot, whose interests seemed almost random.

"I see. And you, then, understand the nature of duty and obligation," Fireblade asked the shorter, red-haired human, and Kelly nodded.
"If it's not too bold, I would say that I do. I wasn't forced to enlist, I chose to enlist, because my parents... I wouldn't say they pushed me to enlist; didn't even say they expected it, so much as they just... Took it as expected, the same way you expect that the sun will set at the end of the daytime. This kind of thing wasn't so much as explicitly spelled out to me the way you two explained it to Jardin so much as it was... Distilled wisdom that you just get from having grown up like that. You get why we do what we do, whether that's grabbing a rifle and heading into battle, or cleaning up and putting on an immaculate dress uniform to attend a parade, even if celebrating is the last thing on your mind."

Jardin swallowed. Man, even when I'm finally home, I feel like the girls around me know everything and I don't. He thought back to he Bellarmine, bittersweetly envisioning Ellen's face. Not that that's all that new. But he nodded. "Yeah..." He sighed, and tugged on the collar of his jacket again, testing his scarf. He'd always wanted to wear a Captain's greatcoat, but he'd never imagined he'd get one while he was still nearer to 20 than 30; granted, by Loroi wartime standards that made him a long-time veteran of the campaign, but he hardly felt it. "I get it now. We're not celebrating our victory because we did something awesome that deserves a celebration... We're doing it to boost the public's morale."

Fireblade and Tempo nodded; Talon, on the other hand, smirked. "Don't undervalue what we did, though," she said. "Nobody's ever captured a TT as anything except a debris field. Even if it was difficult, we shouldn't fail to appreciate it. Anything less would be disrespectful to the soldiers who died storming that fat shell."

"Permission still holds to speak freely, Captain Jardin," the Yeoman asked, and Jardin nodded; behind him, as she brushed what may have been imaginary lint off the coat, she said, "that one, uh... I never got your name?"
"Talon," the pilot filled in, and Kelly seemed to digest that.
"Talon, she has the right of it, I think. It may feel wrong to throw a parade, but capturing that big motherfu - err..." There was a distinct non-sound of a lip being bitten in self chastisement. "That huge ship is one hell of an accomplishment. So we throw a parade for the cameras, then when it's over, we find the smokiest bar we can find, and raise a glass to the friends and comrades who didn't make it far enough to see it. Because they'd want to be there with us if they could be, right?"

Alex sucked in a breath; for a moment, he wanted to argue, then he wondered what things would be like if Tempest had picked up him and Ellen. There probably would have been a lot of confusion about him technically being her superior officer (if only by the narrowest of margins of having entered Captain Hamilton's office first,) but if everything had shaken out... Yes, she would have wanted to be here, to see this. She definitely would have wanted a chance to pilot a giant robot with him and Fireblade, and to see that massive warship captured.

"Yeah. You're right; the friends I've lost would want to be here. Like Ellen - Kirkland, Ensign Ellen. Or Blazing Star," he said, nodding to Fireblade, who nodded back.
"Rising Tide; Reed," she said, and the others began to nod; Jardin's eyes flicked to their faces. He could see it in their eyes, in the grim, determined look on Fireblade's face that promised she wouldn't be satisfied with the balance of blood until she'd repaid every lost friend with a hundred Umiak each; the introspective look so uncommon on Tempo's face, the faces of friends lost undoubtedly flying through her mind; the heartbroken, wretchedly sad look on the otherwise-irrepressible Beryl's face, undoubtedly she was dwelling on the last moments of whole vessels, persons she had seen and been speaking to one moment; the next, a burst of static and interrupted transmission, while Talon had the wistful, 'here's-to-you' look on her face of a veteran fighter pilot who's lost far, far too many wingmen. If they were to put names to those they'd lost, together the five of them could undoubtedly spend hours talking about people they missed. He wondered who he'd speak of second; first would be Ellen, of course. Probably Captain Hamilton, he thought.

"... You guys have all lost a lot of friends, haven't you," Kelly asked, quietly, and Alexander swallowed, looking back and nodding at her. "There were eighty on Bellarmine. As far as we know, I'm the only survivor. That still puts me at, by far, the lowest number of people-I-knew-or-served-with-lost-in-action in this room. Well, excepting you," he said, swallowing. Man, I hope that doesn't sound morbid. I mean, I know it's morbid, but I hope I don't mean I'm like... Dick-measuring the number-of-people-I've-lost. That's a really shitty thing to claim bragging rights over.

"Two," Kelly said, quietly. "My younger brother died in a stupid training accident last year. My younger sister was a Marine, she went into that big mother in orbit in like, the second boarding wave. She didn't come out."

There was a moment's grave reflection, and Jardin noted it in the faces of the aliens whom he'd become intimately familiar with over the last years; respect. The same sort of respect he'd fought so hard to earn from them. Fireblade, in particular, looked at the Yeoman with a recognizing, knowing look. Fireblade had lost far more friends than any of the others in the room, he knew. She almost looked as if she were about to say something, but the door behind them opened again, and a young man in uniform peeked in. "Captain Jardin; the parade's in half an hour. The brass want you shiny and polished next to them, with the envoys you brought back."

He snorted. "Does that mean they want me standing next to Commodore Fragile Storm?" The officer looked down at a tablet computer in his hand, and nodded. "According to this seating plan, they do."

"Outstanding," Jardin said. "Thank you, er..." He glanced to the man's insignia. "Lieutenant. Dismissed."
The officer snapped to a sharp salute, and hurried out. Jardin took a deep breath and let it out slow. "Right then. We make a good show of attending a parade, Fragile Storm gives me a medal, demands an explanation for all of this from me, she kills me in a fit of rage. That seems to be the agenda for the day. Tempo, I expect you to make sure my untimely demise doesn't start a war between us. Kelly, you're pretty savvy; same deal, and I expect you to track down my parents and tell them not to blame Fragile Storm, blame their son for being the jackass he always has been."

Kelly sucked in a sharp breath, but Tempo, he noted, saw his gallows humor for what it was, and smirked back at him, as did Fireblade. "I'll make sure you have a hero's funeral," the diplomat said, as he started for the door. Fireblade chuckled.
"And I shall spare your parents the awkwardness of attempting to demand justice for your murder by challenging her to a duel for killing my friend. I will be victorious, and then I shall be executed for it. Tempo will no doubt see that the three of us are buried together. That should be mutually satisfactory for all parties involved, yes?"

Jardin glanced back; Kelly had that same 'not sure if they're joking or serious' look on her face that he had often worn shortly after meeting the Loroi - and in fairness, that they had often worn when speaking with him. The semi-horrified look she wore was payoff enough, and he actually laughed, while Talon, not Beryl, was the first to break into a quiet giggle, shortly followed by Beryl, and Alex himself, while Tempo refrained from the laugh but had a huge grin on her face. "Leave the diplomacy to Tempo, Fireblade," the pilot said, grinning and turning to follow Jardin out.

Showtime, he thought.
Last edited by ShadowDragon8685 on Sat Jun 25, 2016 4:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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

Post by Hālian »

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Don't delay, join today!

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

Post by Krulle »

This is good, bur I'm too tired to continue reading tonight.
Note to self: PTSD is where I am right now.
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

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by sunphoenix »

I read the whole thing.. Great Read! :) Very amusing and .. Extremely appropriate... I hope some of its theme actually bears out in the Comic... should it ever reach that point, it would be cool to see the story illustrated! :)

... so very ElfQuest... :)
PbP:
[IC] Deep Strike 'Lt' Kamielle Lynn
[IC] Cydonia Rising/Tempest Sonnidezi Stormrage
[IC] Incursion Maiannon Golden Hair
[IC] TdSmR Athen Rourke

"...you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is Kill him."

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

Post by Krulle »

I have to agree, a very great read indeed!

Any more ideas you're willing to put in words and share?
I would be looking forward to them very much!
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
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

1,651 days after first contact with Humanity.

Commodore Fragile Storm was, loathe though she was to admit it, forced to concede that the unimaginatively-named homeworld of humanity was a nice enough planet. The weather was comfortably tolerable to her way of mind - indeed, where they had been directed, it was, she thought, outright pleasant; a mild early winter day, with no snowfall in sight and sadly, no wind to whip her hair up.

Of course, others, she knew, didn't agree with that assessment; her sister and herself, raised in a cliquish clan in cold, snowy highlands, found it to be quite satisfactory, but most of the gaggle of Listel and Mizol they had brought with them were subtly uncomfortable; Ocean Breeze, born and raised on a tropical ocean world, was fighting hard simply to prevent herself from shivering, while the rest were in varying degrees of discomfort, and wishing they had been able to, as had the ataches with Jardin, avoid donning dress uniforms and attend in their duty uniforms.

She noted with some smug amusement that more than a few of them were eyeing the greatcoat that Jardin and a few of the other human officers were wearing with some envy; most of the humans in sight seemed to be absolutely fine in this weather. Then again, she mused in fairness, if she couldn't sense the thoughts and emotions of her subordinates, most of them would appear to be perfectly fine in this weather, despite their mental discomfort.

Jardin's group, on the other hand, did seem to be fine. A stray movement by his pilot let her see why, and she smirked; the group were seated in a circle, with Fireblade, Talon and Tempo behind, Alexander and Beryl up front. Smuggled between them appeared to be a small portable heating device.

Instantly, a wave of envy ran through her subordinates, and Ocean Breeze - a mizol junior analyst with all of the build of a male Loroi - turned to shoot a dark glare at Jardin's accomplices. The pilot, Talon, turned and shot a grin back at her. For a moment, Fragile Storm thought the pilot was going to gloat, but instead her hand slipped into a rear-facing pocket on Jardin's coat. That caught her eye; she couldn't imagine any superior officer tolerating a junior pilfering from them. The pilot tapped on his shoulder, and he looked back at her; a quick point of her finger past Fragile Storm and Fragile Spear to the nearly shivering tropical-worlder, and Jardin nodded.

Fragile Storm wasn't an expect on reading human body language; but she was, she believed, an expert on reading Jardin's. He wasn't giving permission; that was, she believed, presumed. He was acknowledging, as Talon withdrew another small portable heater. Fireblade took it from her; a brief pulse of telekinetic power sent the small device rolling across the aisle behind Fragile Storm with impeccable accuracy, and the uncomfortable analyst caught it with her foot, picking it up. Working out how to activate it took the span of a moment, and a wave of relief ran through the diplomats and analysts.

The whole exchange took but a few moments, and Fragile Storm looked back ahead. The display ahead of her was at once utterly alien, and utterly familiar; the equipment on display, the uniforms, the actors themselves, all alien, but she knew full well the steps of this particular dance. Gather together your soldiers, put on a show to demonstrate to the civilian populace that you were accomplishing things.

On the face of it, it seemed absurd for a race as technologically backward as Humanity to put on such a display, when the tiny flotilla of Loroi fast warships in orbit could almost certainly lay waste to their entire species. On the other hand, she had seen the results for herself; a captured Hierarchy TT-class Superheavy and its escorts, being pulled apart, undoubtedly to be analyzed and studied by their scientists.

They were taking the long view. A more shortsighted, aggressive people would have pressed the captured ships into service. Below, human soldiers marched, and she frowned. Something was bothering her about it, but she couldn't express it exactly. A unit of humans wearing colorfully-patterned short skirts instead of practical trousers were marching past, with some kind of musician playing a device that resembled a bag with poles sticking from it, emitting a sound that would be cacophony if not for the others playing similar devices; together, they made something that resembled music.

She felt the subtle brush of a fingertip along the back of her hand, her sister's voice in her head. What bothers you, Storm?
Fragile Storm couldn't quite express it. I do not know. Something about the parade puts me on edge.
Do you feel we are in danger?
No - not any immediate, personal danger, Fragile Storm clarified. I know this is an irrational feeling. I can see no reason for my discomfort. What do you see?

Her more serene sibling looked out over the parade. Soldiers marching, sister, displaying dress uniforms, their discipline and martial skill. It's hardly an unearned boast, too.
Suddenly, it did hit her. Spear, these soldiers are as straight-backed as a royal guard, she pointed out, and recognition dawned in her sibling's mind; visions of the last time they had seen Emperor Greywind's personal soldiers marching on Deinar.
Yes, I can see that. Clearly, humanity have sent their best to represent them - what is so unusual about that? They are certainly doing an admirable job of marching in lockstep.
Indeed, the rythymic bootfalls of the human soldiers were forming a tempo as they marched down the broad boulevard before them; the street shut down to normal use, tall rows of viewing galleries lining the street, filled; where she was, it was mostly officials, but farther down the line were cheering crowds of human civilians.

She caught a stray murmur from the source of her irritation, and Fragile Storm tilted her head to listen; she hadn't been paying as much attention to spoken words as she should have - stupid she knew, as any conversation involving a human would necessarily have to be conducted in Trade... Only it wasn't. She realized with a start that Beryl had asked Jardin a question in his native tongue.

She had taken the time to learn it, for which she was thankful, as she began listening in.
"Actually, most of these aren't just different units, most of them are from different nations," Alexander said, glancing down at a tablet computer in his hand. "We needed a lot of marines on short notice to board that TT. The TCA didn't have enough men in-system, so they had to call the nations of Earth for their troops. The soldiers who were marching first in line were TCA Marines; these are the one-seven-one Royal Highland Marine Commandos of the UK, coming up next we can see the USMC," he explained to the analyst next to him, pointing down the road at an upcoming unit marching under a distinct banner of red and white stripes with a blue field in the top left.

Suddenly, it fell into place, and Fragile Storm realized what was bothering her. Sister? Fragile Spear asked, and Storm leaned forward, her eyes scanning the marching soldiers on display, then glancing back to her sibling.
These aren't royal guards, she sent to her sister, thankful for the presumption her sibling had taken. These are combat units, just back from engaging the enemy. These humans will have seen their comrades-in-arms maimed and killed days ago, will have been in the midst of battle, and yet they are here, marching with the discipline and morale of a royal guard; marching alongside rival units from other territorial factions and nations no less.

Fragile Storm sat back, ill-contented, guarding her mind against probative oversight from her subordinates - and Jardin's band. She needed time to think, and she didn't like the conclusions she reached. Spear sensed her disquiet, and asked her What bothers you?
Our future, sister. Our future. She closed her eyes. These humans. They are a grave long-term threat to the Union. Part of me wants to fly home and recommend we immediately begin a campaign to confine them to their homeworld and destroy all their orbital industries.

It wasn't often that Fragile Spear's serenity cracked, but she turned to look into Fragile Storm's eyes, and Fragile Storm turned her head to meet her sister's gaze. Spear looked shocked. What? Why?

Because if we don't stop them now, they'll be too much for us to stop later, Fragile Storm elaborated. This war is going to be a long one, and our race is going to suffer for it. Even if we win, the winning will not be fast, nor will we profit by it. But these humans - they are very far from the front lines. The war may never even touch their worlds, yet they are gearing up their economy to a full war footing, and they've just captured one of the shells' largest and most advanced vessels; it would be the height of ignorance to claim they are too technologically primitive to derive great understanding from dismantling and studying it.
Fragile Spear shook her head, and looked back to the Parade. Receiving advanced technology does not necessarily mean one can make use of it. The Historians gave us an example plasma weapon years ago, and only this week is the first of our fully-featured prototype plasma focus-armed vessel coming online.

We were still able to make use of what we learned from studying it to implement the Pulse Cannon within months, which retains a range advantage even over the Hierarchy's longest-ranged foci, Fragile Storm reminded her sibling. And it formed the basis of our Wave-Loom Device. But it is not weaponry alone which wins wars, and analyzing that TT and the shells' gunshps is going to teach these pink... 'Cousins' of ours a great deal about gravitational dampeners, starship drives, power plants. I doubt they would be able to even match the shells for decades to come, but this will advance their science by centuries.
But that is a good thing, sister; they are our allies, and it is clear that they are more than willing to take battle to the shells, Fragile Spear pointed out, all they lack is the capability to do so in fleet engagements.

Fragile Storm nodded, and took in a deep breath. A hundred scents were caught on the wind, many familiar, most not; the scent of her perfume and that of her sibling, the hair styling gel the young analyst nearer to her used. The alien scents of this city, the unfamiliar materials and chemical processes which went into making it, the scent of what she believed were baked goods on the wind.
Yes indeed. Consider: humanity stands to profit greatly by this war. They are far enough from the front lines the enemy may never again locate their homeworld; they did, indeed, ensure a clean sweep, no Shell couriers escaped. Industrially and technologically they stand to profit. Meanwhile, we stand only to lose; this war has been fought, primarily, within our territory. Even when - if - that changes, it is hard to say that we will ever reap sufficient rewards to place us on par with where we would have been had this war not ensued.
You believe this war will weaken us, even if we emerge victorious; while it will only strengthen humanity? Spear caught on, and Fragile Storm stared ahead.

I do. It is clear to me now that these people will not accept subjugation the way the Delrias did.
Why so, even assuming it became necessary to subjugate them, Fragile Spear asked, and Fragile Storm let a thin smile cross her lips.
For the same reason that they have chosen to ally with us instead of the shells, sister; for the reason we refuse to bow knee to the Hierarchy, even though it is clear by now to any military planner with a grasp of simple statistics that we are losing this war. Because it is not in our nature to accept survival under the yoke. We have a belief in our own manifest destiny; we can accept that other races may be our equals, or our inferiors; but we would sooner fight to the last than accept another race as our betters. These humans are, if they are so much as one-tenth the creature Jardin is, to a man and woman the same. Perhaps it could be beaten out of them, in time, but it would be a long, bloody occupation to do so. It would be far more difficult than the Delrias occupation; they are so similar to us that our soldiers could not help but feel some form of kinship and sympathy for them. Of course, that would not stop them from performing their duties; nor would the similarities stay the hand of these humans from resisting our occupation, but it would make such an occupation fundamentally a far, far worse guerilla campaign than the Delrias occupation; this is before taking into account their utter immunity to sanzai mind-probing. Containment or extermination would be far more viable options than turning these people into a subjugated vassal state.

You don't like the idea of extermination, Fragile Spear intuited, and Fragile Storm shook her head.
I do not. It would be... Prudent perhaps, from a certain point of view; expedient certainly, but such a destruction would be an outrage, even to me. I believe that if the Emperor ordered such an action, she would tear the Union apart. It would unquestionably cause the Neridi, Barsam, Arekka, Nissik and Historians to turn on us immediately, after how close we came to exterminating the Mannadi. Even without the Hierarchy, the Union could not survive if we united so many of our allies against us, even assuming we all agreed with the action.

What would you do, then? Quarantine them to their homeworld and perhaps the colonies they already have?
Fragile Storm was indecisive on that matter, for a good few moments, watching a unit of humans pass by. She had been impressed by the multiculturalism of the human units; while frontline Loroi units would and did draw from all over the Union, these were the special forces of individual, regional armies. She would have expected far more homogeneity in their makeup; these were marching under a rather colorful banner, more complicated than most; a black arrowhead at the leftmost side, edged in a thin gold line, itself bordered with thick green that erupted to the rightmost side of the flag from the tip; edged with a thin white line, and with the remainder of the banner red at the top and blue at the bottom. The humans were clearly of vastly different ethnicity; many of them were pink as Jardin but heavily tanned from great exposure to the sun, others were brown, in varying shades; some so dark as to be almost black, some of them quite light-toned.
How do they coordinate, she asked her sister, suddenly. Fragile Spear sensed her sister's confusion, and she elaborated; these soldiers are disciplined to the highest degree. If you close your eyes, the falls of their boots could easily be those of Emperor Greywind's personal guard, and we have seen far more human soldiers than are in the royal guard... These humans do not have Sanzai. How are they possibly capable of such coordination without communication?

Fragile Spear looked at her, then back to the soldiers on display. Drill and discipline, she concluded. These are, after all, the special forces of their respective nations; they must train relentlessly. But you are right... I cannot imagine the Emperor's Guard would perform nearly so well if sanzai were suddenly blocked. Perhaps if given additional time to train and drill in operating without sanzai... Or, perhaps these humans replicate sanzai with radio, via communications devices implanted into them, as the shells do?

Perhaps both, sister. That was what was bothering me; I could not identify the problem until now. They are as straight-backed as a royal guard; this I could believe, even from a more primitive species; technological advancement has little to do with how high morale and discipline may be. But they are doing so without the natural capabilities our soldiers have; this, too, I could believe from any race's royal guards. But these are not royal guards; these are the combat units which recently saw action. I believe we would be hard-pressed to locate a frontline combat unit of our own which could go into battle, suffer terrible losses in action, and then a handful of days later put on a performance such as this. The willpower of these people is formidable indeed; equal to our own without question. Only their technology is lacking... And I believe on that front, they will catch up rather sooner than we will find comfortable. Within our lifetimes, assuming we survive this war... Especially if, as I believe may be likely, the Historians are plotting to provide them with technological advancement.

Fragile Spear conveyed a quizzical sensation, and Fragile Storm elaborated; The Historians do not trust us, they view us as dangerously expansionist. If the Hierarchy had not unwisely attempted to invade their space, they would have remained out of this conflict, and policy or no, I do not believe we would have been able to force them in the matter. It would be folly to imagine they are not thinking ahead to the future; if our race advances unchecked, and they continue their apparent stagnation, eventually we could threaten to annex them. If they had an ally who was on, if not equal footing with us, a strong enough position to make the prospect exceedingly unpleasant for us, in the form of a race which was very much like us but also very grateful to them... It would be a very effective deterrent to any potential future Loroi-Historian aggression.

You view them as a threat, her sister intuited, and Fragile Storm agreed. She sensed a mild exasperation on her sibling's part. Sister, you view everything as a potential threat.
You haven't forgotten mother's teachings, sister, Fragile Storm pointed out, but Fragile Spear only responded with more mild exasperation.
I have not, but at the same time, it cannot be conductive to good relations to regard our allies as our future enemies.

It is hard not to. One cannot help but respect the tenacity, willpower and drive of these people, but those qualities, if turned upon us, would make them foes at least as deadly as the Hierarchy. Perhaps all the moreso for all their similarities to us.
Then, would it not would make sense to, well... Let them be? Allow them their neutrality? Guarantee them their protection from the shells, even, but allow them to remain out of the conflict? Fragile Spear seemed to realize the error of the question almost as soon as she thought it. Ah, I see. The Hierarchy are aware of the humans, if not their exact location. The Historians, too, are, if you mistrust their intent. This is a meeting which cannot be undone.

Exactly that; but also... Also, we require all the aid we can get. These people may have little in the way of direct ability to aid us in fleet combat, but an industrial base untouched by the war, and unknown to the enemy, can only be an advantage, even if it does require time to make ready to contribute to the war effort; time to educate the humans and construct industrial facilities compatible with our technological base. We need them, much as I hate to admit it. The question to my mind is whether allying ourselves with these lookalikes is only going to delay our destruction and change the nature of those who destroy us?

She felt a certain sense of smugness from her sibling. That is what worries you most of all, isn't it. You perceive these humans as a threat, and you instinctually consider how to mitigate or contain it. And because they are so similar to us, you suspect that they must surely be plotting against us, as surely as you are plotting how you would engage in hostilities with them, if circumstances permitted.
For a brief moment, Fragile Storm wanted to snap at her sibling, but what would be the point? She was right, and Spear knew she was right. I do not like being forced to... trust them. It feels like I'm sitting with my back to an open door.
Perhaps, then, we should not treat them as others. Look. Fragile Spear's mental exhortation drew her sister's gaze. Jardin was adjusting Beryl; the short analyst had fallen asleep in her chair; as she watched, she went from instinctually outraged to curious. The human gently leaned her forward; at first she thought he was playing a cruel prank on her, arranging for her to be spilled from her seat for having fallen asleep, but as she watched, he shrugged out of his greatcoat, wrapped it around the exhausted listel's back, and leaned her back into the chair, wrapping the front of it around her. This didn't seem to alarm Tempo, Fireblade or Talon, though the eyes of all of her own aides were upon it. Clearly, they trust him.

That was indisputable; A Loroi would never have let someone she didn't trust touch one of her friends, let alone whilst she was unconscious. Yet as she watched, Alexander began to slightly shiver, wrapping his arms around his own midsection; clearly he was cold without the greatcoat, raising his hands to cup around his mouth, breathing into them and rubbing them together.
Not only did the four Loroi who had been attached to him trust him, but he clearly trusted - and cared for - them as more than simple comrades-in-arms. Beryl may have been uncomfortable, shivering in her sleep, but she seemed better able to withstand the cool early winter morning than Jardin did; yet he had given her literally the coat off his back. Some people were genuinely generous in all things, and Jardin she knew was a generally generous person, but even so, she suspected he considered Beryl a friend, not a comrade.
The way she slumped to the side, in her sleep, her head falling to his shoulder confirmed it; few Loroi would tolerate that, even if they didn't risk being drawn into the other's dreams.

Even if, upon second consideration, it didn't carry the same social stigma that contact did among Loroi, she didn't imagine Jardin would tolerate it if some random person had elected; consciously or otherwise to use his shoulder to perch their head while they were unconscious, at least, not with the same amount of grace. Instead of expressing displeasure, he simply stilled his right arm, so that she wouldn't be jostled, while clasping his left hand over his right, rubbing the back of his hand, warming himself. This lasted only a mere moment, though; Tempo reached down, picking up the portable heater, and slid it around to the front of Jardin, directing it up at him. Talon and Fireblade put on their gauntlets, while Tempo slid her hands into the pouches at her hips.

The motions were small, unobtrusive; in a crowd of this size, it was unlikely that anyone save perhaps the human officers immediately to the other side of the group would even have noticed, and Fragile Storm wondered briefly whether their thoughts were along the same lines as hers. Nevertheless, they spoke volumes to her; her, and Fragile Spear. Almost as one, they recalled scenes from their youth, memories of sitting around a campfire in the wilderness in wintertime, armed with spears and crossbows (for hunting) and pistols (for protection,) sent out by their mother to fend for themselves for a week. Insular and clannish, they would have been highly reluctant to allow anyone they didn't know join them at the fire, unless she seemed on the verge of freezing to death.


Perhaps our mother's upbringing has ill-prepared us to see the best in others, Fragile Spear suggested. It is a risk, but perhaps we must attempt to welcome these humans heartily.
I don't see that there is a 'perhaps' about it, sister. We are between the proverbial spear and sword. We must ally with these humans; our economic base is simply not strong enough to prevail in this war otherwise. That they are proving themselves more than capable of matching themselves against the shells in any field of combat where the shells do not enjoy a crushing technological superiority is a bonus; we need whatever resources and materiel they can provide.
You see it as a choice between submitting or succumbing to the shells now, or setting ourselves up for the next conflict, the one with the humans, her sister responded, chastising her. And what then? Would we then ally with whatever is left of the Shells to defeat them?
Fragile Storm's instant response was negative, so strongly negative that it broke through her guardedness; all of the Loroi in her immediate vicinity save the unconscious listel and her sister turned to look at her, worried. She immediately sent calming to them, as if to reassure them, but she noted a suspicious, lingering look on Fireblade's face.

It was to be expected, she thought; she didn't like it, but she had been required to become more tactful when dealing with the humans. This, in turn, had led to her applying that instinctually to other Loroi, guarding her emotions most of the time. Her staff had become accustomed; and the younger members of Jardin's party appeared to understand and presume it was benign, presumably owing to their long association with the human; Fireblade, though, left her with the impression that the teidar was wary of her, as if she suspected hostility.

It was the typical reaction of older Loroi, really, to how guarded and standoffish she had become. I think that adequately proves my point. You'd ally with the humans and the historians, even if you view them as potential threats, to overcome the shells. You would not ally yourself with the shells, even if it was the only means of prevailing against the humans. Is that because of the last years of war, or is it because you see them as so fundamentally repulsive that you'd rather stand alone than at their side?
Fragile Storm didn't know, but her sister wasn't done. In any case, the question is immaterial. Unless something far worse and far more alien turns up and threatens to destroy us and the Hierarchy together, we will never know. What can be known, however, is whether humans are untrustworthy allies of convenience... Or if we can come to accept them as friends, companions, comrades. I think the answer is sitting to your right, sister.

To Fragile Storm's right, of course, was Captain Alexander Horatio Jardin, slightly uncomfortable despite the heater running at his feet, yet smiling despite - or perhaps because of - Beryl leaning on his shoulder. As she watched, the pilot leaned forward, tapping his shoulder, and saying something; he grinned, and nodded at her, lowering his shoulder slightly to lower Beryl's head. On the other side, while Fireblade rolled her eyes, Tempo slipped an Imperial decoration - Fragile Storm couldn't remember when or how she'd come by it, she certainly hadn't been ordered to present it to her - from around her ear. Reaching up, carefully, with his left arm, Jardin took it from her, and carefully navigated it onto Beryl's right ear. Somehow, she didn't wake up, and the four settled back down.

Fragile Storm couldn't see what the payoff was going to be, though she felt a minor sense of disapproval; it would constitute a minor offense against the Union to wear such a decoration without having received it properly. Perhaps that was the point; to embarrass Beryl when she woke up, the sort of small joke warriors would play on their friends. The payoff came a few minutes later, when Beryl stretched her arms up, the coat falling around them to her lap; instinctively, she reached up to her right ear, as if removing an earpiece; she took the decoration from around her ear, breathed on it and sleepily drew it down to rub it against the soft fabric patch at the front of her duty uniform, then she stopped. She looked down, and blinked when she saw the huge decoration instead of an earpiece. A blush rose to her face, and a quiet titter arose from those with her, even Jardin, who was chuckling.

Fragile Storm didn't get it, she couldn't see anything inherently funny about it; and that, she understood, was the point. It was a private joke, the sort exclusive to a small, tight-knit group that held meaning for them and them alone. Beryl blushed, smiling self-consciously, and handed the earpiece back over her shoulder to Tempo.

You're saying that we can, and we must, not simply align ourselves with these people; we must befriend them.
That is what I am saying; that is what mother always said. 'An ally of convenience ceases to be an ally when alliance ceases to be convenient, and a vassal's obedience is only assured as long as their destruction for disloyalty is assured, but a true friend will be loyal unto the hilt of the enemy's blade.'

Fragile Storm remembered well. You do realize that mother was cautioning us against developing friendships, lest those we befriended lead us to ruin, yes?
That is the lesson mother intended to impart to us, yes; that is not the lesson I took from it. I learned that it is better to have friends than to have vassals or allies of convenience, and the only way to make a friend is to be a friend.

Ocean Breeze's mind cut through the private reverie Fragile Storm was sharing with her sister, loudly announcing her thoughts to all Loroi in the vicinity; Attention please: my human liason has informed me there will be a brief ceremony for the dead coming up shortly, and respectful silence is appropriate for the duration. It should last approximately one-hundred twenty solon, and will be commenced by an overflight of military aerofighters. The human military officers present will be expected to stand at attention, and it would not be considered rude for us to do so.

That, at least, was something Fragile Storm understood all-too-well, having presided over far, far too many such ceremonies. She raised her own mental voice; she very seldom gave direct orders to any of the crew of her vessel, as that was more properly her sister's job as the commander. Company, prepare to stand at attention!

She had seen Alexander standing, in silent solemnity, at the funeral of Loroi who had died protecting him. The very least she could do was ensure that her people properly reciprocated that respect. Instantly, the backs of the gaggle of analysts and diplomats with her sister and herself - and their two guards - stiffened. Ocean Breeze, signal the fleet to observe respectful silence for those lost in action against Hierarchy forces. The analyst's hand went to her earpiece, and she spoke rapidly into it.

To her right, Jardin was fussing himself back into his jacket; a slim, red-headed human woman with an agile warrior's build turned around in her seat, braced on her knees, and together she, Beryl and Tempo quickly rearranged his jacket, straightening it and ordering it; Fireblade reached over his shoulder and rotated a Loroi decoration that was nearly symmetrical to the proper orientation. This entire exchange took place without a word being exchanged, which puzzled Fragile Storm slightly; whilst his Loroi companions could, of course, have coordinated setting his presentability to rights without speaking aloud, the human assistant he had seemingly been assigned could not possibly have coordinated in that manner. She supposed that 'Adjutant' was indeed a universally understood language which needed neither words nor sanzai.

Below, the marching had ceased, the military units still visible down the road having halted in their tracks, standing at attention, waiting. Directly before the stands they were in was a small unit in pristine uniforms of very dark blue, with red stripes on their trousers and bright white caps; seven soldiers carrying rifles of some designation or another, in a line abreast; directly in front of them was an eighth holding some kind of shiny, brassy instrument. In the distance, she could hear the distant howl of approaching craft cutting through the air, and looked down the long, broad boulevard. Four craft, staggered, were approaching low and relatively slow.

Fragile Storm pondered the significance of that for a moment, as she fixed her eyes on Jardin, waiting for him to rise, as she did not know what form to expect the signal to rise to take at a human memorial.
A flicker of motion caught her eye, and she saw that the musician at the lead of the group of rifles had raised the brassy instrument to her lips; it must have been a musical instrument, which puzzled Fragile Storm for a moment. Though the single instrument couldn't possibly have been that loud, it seemed to be echoed and magnified from the entire surroundings, as the musician began to play.

For a moment, she wondered just what was going on, but then as she saw Jardin rise, she understood, and gave the order Company: stand at ready! as she rose. Naturally, without sanzai, humans would have to use some kind of audible signal, and the mournful, drawn-out tones of the horn seemed to work as well as any.
It went smoothly; the military officers to the left and right of her group and Jardin's, and those across the street, were all rising to stand; sporadically, so did certain members of the general civilian population further up and down the boulevard that she saw. The aircraft howl reached a crescendo as they approached and everyone reached their feet and stood rigidly at attention; four aircraft in a staggered arrowhead formation, three of them in a typical chevron and the fourth trailing to the right. The humans who had rose all appeared, uniformly, to raise their right hands to the sides of their heads.

As they passed overhead, one of the oncoming craft performed a maneuver she wasn't expecting; the third craft in the formation, on the lead craft's starboard tail and with the rearmost craft on its starboard tail, began trailing bilious white smoke, and pulled up and out of formation, banking hard to starboard and pulling away from the formation, which flew on down the boulevard.

That puzzled Fragile Storm; she wouldn't make snide comments about an event at an observance for the fallen, but she couldn't imagine that the humans would be so careless with their craft maintenance that a mechanical fault would force the pilot to drop out of formation and return to whatever landing field she flew out of during a ceremony. There had to be another explanation, but she wasn't going to interrupt to ask for it; below, the horn-player had finished, and she turned smartly on her heels, facing the seven men behind her, who had stood with the rifles over their shoulders whilst saluting the entire time.

Her voice was not magnified, but she spoke in the audible version of every teidar commanding officer's sanzai broadcasting, and Fragile Storm easily overheard her in the respectful hush that had overcome the crowd. "Present arms!"
The seven riflemen - and they were all males, though so tall and broadly built that Fragile Storm had instinctively presumed they were women at first - shifted the grip on their weapons, holding them across their chests; ceremonial arms, she could tell, though she found it curious that the humans used firearms instead of melee weapons for such purposes. Each was a long rifle clad in polished wood instead of metal or some kind of polymer, which gave away the ceremonial nature of the weapons to Fragile Storm; the metal she could see was either well-polished brass at the trigger guard and reciever, like the commander's instrument, or matte black, at the muzzle.

The commander of the ceremonies unit turned on her heel, marching sharply away from the stands Fragile Storm was on; she walked past the last soldier in her line two paces, and smoothly turned around on her heel. "Right face!"
The seven moved in unison, smoothly turning on their right heel, facing her; away from Fragile Storm, as the commander called out "Ready."
All seven of them manipulated their rifles somehow, though Fragile Storm couldn't see how. "Aim!" They turned at the waist, shouldering their rifles, aiming into the sky.
Do they mean to discharge their rifles into their own city? The thought flicked through her mind, Fragile Storm's eyebrow raising.
"Fire!"
As once, the seven rifles cracked, and the riflemen turned back to face the commander. "Ready!"
Once again, they manipulated their rifles, and Fragile Storm figured out what they were doing; soldiers on the ground after a victory would often discharge their weapons into the air, a practice which was deeply frowned upon but which they couldn't seem to stamp out, and so had been forced to issue guidelines for doing so safely. These didn't seem to be energy weapons but mass driver rifles, but that didn't make any sense to Fragile Storm; surely the humans weren't willing to risk discharging rounds over the heads of their own forces, rounds which would inevitably come down, and in a crowded city, would almost certainly hit something.

The seven riflemen fired three times in total, and the commander walked back to the front of the formation, giving the order "Left face: march!" The parade resumed, leaving the soldiers walking on. That seemed to be the signal that the observance was over, as Jardin lowered his hand from his head, and took a deep breath.
Ocean Breeze, signal the fleet that observances are over, Fragile Storm ordered. Company, at ease. She settled back down to her seat, with her sister sitting behind her. She was very curious about the ceremony she had just witnessed; a proper martial demonstration in observance for the dead, but many of the particulars eluded her. She knew that she didn't need to request clarification, however; she had ears, Jardin was sitting an arm's length from her, and Beryl was sitting at his side.

It was Fireblade who asked the question which was most pressing on her mind, however, leaning forward. "Alexander, I know your people are not callous enough to discharge mass drivers inside a populated city in an observance. How did they fire their arms without risking shooting someone downrange?" As expected, he turned to answer.
"Those weren't railgun rifles, Fireblade; those were propellant rifles. Propellant rifles use a chemical reaction - a small explosion, contained - to propel a bullet. We still use propellant rifles for civilian uses, like hunting and self-defense, and for military ceremonial purposes. To do it ceremonially, and safely, they just leave the bullet out, and chamber a blank cartridge containing the explosive, but no projectile."
"Ah. So it was not the sonic crack of a projectile, but that of the gas escaping the muzzle. We used such rifles a long time ago, and some examples remain in private collections," Fireblade noted, and Jardin nodded.

"And the overflight?" Talon, instead of Beryl, asked the other question on her mind; that, too, made sense, as the fighter pilot would no doubt be most curious about the piloting matter. "They wouldn't have had engine failure at a ceremony like this. That had to be deliberate."
"It was," Jardin explained. "That was the 'Missing Man Formation,' human pilots have been flying it for centuries at... Observances, like this one. It's most commonly flown at a ceremony for lost pilots, but it's also done for naval officers, politicians, and major aerospace transportation disasters. The overflight today was for the boarding ships the Umiak shot down once they realized what was going on, but there's going to be an orbital performance of the Missing Man later in the week for the Bell, and......"

He trailed off, suddenly silent, and Fragile Storm raised an eyebrow in curiosity. She didn't need to be able to read his thoughts to see the clear devastation and realization on the male human's face. "Oh," he said. "Oh... Oh, no." He reached across his chest, touching the patch on the arm of his jacket, depicting what Fragile Storm knew to be a forward depiction of Bellarmine, the ship he had survived the loss of to be picked up by Tempest. The look on his face was one of guilt and devastation.

"Jardin? Alexander, what's wrong," Beryl asked, quietly. If she hadn't been looking, she wouldn't have seen it; concern openly filled Beryl's mind, and she touched his hand with hers, ungloved; squeezing his fingers. It seemed to shock Jardin for a moment, and Fragile Storm sensed a flash of... Something, echoed from Beryl; not any kind of decipherable sanzai contact, but the short analyst had touched his mind somehow, anyway, cutting through his reverie.

The male human blinked, rapidly, and blinked away tears, swallowing hard. "I-I just... I just realized something," Jardin said, taking a deep breath and shuddering. "I have a lot of letters to write."
"Letters?" Tempo asked, leaning forward, looking at Alex.

"Yes," he said, swallowing. "Among human military and paramilitary naval services - like the Scout Corps - when a member of a ship's crew is killed in action or goes missing in action, the vessel's commander traditionally writes a letter of condolence to the lost crewman's family... I'm the only survivor of Bellarmine, which makes me, as you pointed out, the commander... Which means I need to write to Ellen's family... To Captain Hamilton's, to...to..."

Jardin trailed off, and swallowed hard. He was young, over-promoted by the exigent circumstances of war. "I just... How do you do that," he asked, numbly. "I always assumed that was like, some kind of training course you got given when you started climbing the ranks..... Oh man. How... How do you do this?"

For once, Fragile Storm saw Alex on the verge of breaking down; no quips, cracks, or insane plans could get him out of that. She sensed that Fireblade was thinking of responding, but her sibling cautioned the Teidar off; Fragile Storm slid out of the seat and smoothly traded with her sister, as Fragile Spear took up sitting in the position she had just vacated.

"Notifying the survivors of lost crewmates is among the most difficult duties the captain of a vessel can bear," she noted quietly. "Most of our allies' militaries have a dedicated corps of notifiers of losses who perform this duty. I am pleased to perceive that for humanity, the captain of a vessel feels sufficiently obligated to her - his - crew that you do so yourselves."

Jardin swallowed, looking over at her, and Fragile Storm took the opportunity to observe. "I... I don't think we've properly met. I'm Captain Alexander Jardin," he said, and Fragile Spear nodded. "I know, Captain Jardin. I am Fragile Spear, commander of the cruiser Retribution."

As her twin looked and sounded just like her, Fragile Storm found Jardin's reaction amusing. He looked between the two of them for a moment, as if confused, before understanding hit him. Momentary confusion on her annoyance's face was moderately gratifying.
Jardin nodded, slowly, and sighed. "It's nice to meet you, then... Why did you enter our conversation, if I may? Most Loroi I've seen refuse to enter a conversation I'm part of."

"Most Loroi would sooner remain silent than enter a conversation in Trade where there is a risk of speaking out-of-turn," Fragile Spear explained, a moment before Tempo was about to say the same thing. "In this case, however, I do not feel it is out-of-turn to speak. I have, unfortunately, offered counsel for a great many young commanders who are in the situation of composing notification to the survivors of their fallen subordinates for the first time, and are feeling overwhelmed by it; and I have sufficient authority to speak in the matter, given that our ranks are equal, to make my input."

Jardin swallowed, slightly; a sign, Fragile Storm knew, that he was subtly uncomfortable, but he nodded nonetheless. "I see. I would value your input, then, Captain Fragile Spear; what advice would you give another Loroi captain in this situation?"
Fragile Storm found herself slightly surprised; of the adjectives she would have attached to Jardin, humility was not among them, and his display of it was new in her experience. Her sister continued, "As with all tasks, the enormity of it may make it seem far greater than it is. The first step is, as with most large tasks, to identify the discrete steps to be accomplished; in this case, you will need to compile a list of the fallen. The second step is to identify to whom the notification will be delivered; this situation is, I understand things, much simplified by the simple family structure and lack of specialized caste training when notifying a human; you have your own rules of kinship, I am certain, but they generally indicate that parents, siblings, or grandparents would be the most likely persons to notify, yes?"
"Spouses would go first, usually, then that order of preference, but human military members are asked to identify their preferred next-of-kin on their paperwork," Jardin said, thinking back to the uncomfortable enlistment paperwork wherein he had listed his mother and father as his own next-of-kin. "In the absence of such a preference being filed, or if that person predeceased them, we would generally go by civilian rules of kinship such as those used to determine whom would be the inheritor of the deceased serviceman's property."
Fragile Spear nodded. "That, fortunately, is a subtask that may be adequately delegated to a subordinate, and is preferably done so." In the row in front of Jardin, Fragile Storm noted the human adjutant nod, in silent agreement. "Having determined to whom the notification must be sent, you must write the notification. I find it helpful, if I did not know the deceased personally, to consult their immediate superior; or, if unavailable, the most recent records available about the fallen warrior's duties. I try to ascribe the most noble interpretation to the deceased's loss; this is no great difficulty for crew lost in battle, but fatal mistakes and accidents happen in wartime. If at all possible, I try to ascribe such losses as relating to enemy action to allow the survivors to believe their kin died a heroic death; slipping and falling from a ladder performing maintenance is not a heroic fate, but if the maintenance was necessitated by battle damage, for instance, then the fallen crewman was performing damage-control duties. That such duties did not necessarily occur in the heat of combat but a week later need not necessarily be mentioned."
Fragile Spear looked past Jardin, and raised her eyebrow. "You seem to disagree?"

On the far side of Jardin was a human male, but of such a bearing that Fragile Storm could easily see how human males were traditionally their warriors; he was taller than any Loroi she knew, with shoulders broader than Fireblade's whilst wearing heavy combat armor, in a deeply-colored navy-blue greatcoat, his chest festooned with decorations - and she had learned enough about the humans to know not to dismiss one so decorated as puffing up his own importance. He had a thick ridge of stiff, black-and-white hair surrounding his jaw, entirely unlike any Loroi male, and his face was weatherbeaten with age. Were he Loroi, she would have placed him as being Emperor Greywind's peer in age, and even though she knew he had to be far younger, she suspected he was actually older than herself and her twin. Such age and military bearing demanded respect.
He half-stood, and Fragile Storm watched as he extended his hand past Beryl and Jardin, towards her sibling. She recognized the gesture, having had it explained to her during a meeting with Scout Corps diplomats, but her sister, who had remained on the bridge of Glory, blinked her hand in confusion, as the man introduced himself. "Callan, Admiral Harold, TCA."
Fragile Spear stared at his hand in puzzlement, but Jardin stepped in, raising his hand to the human Admiral's forearm, quietly saying "Loroi don't touch one another socially, Admiral," he explained quietly. "It does things with their telepathy that they tend to find unpleasant, when touching someone they aren't intimately acquainted with."

The human admiral seemed to digest this quickly, and withdrew his hand, nodding his head. "My apologies. I can see we're going to need to our respective diplomatic corps work with one another to distribute a manual of interaction etiquette." Fragile Spear inclined her head.
"No offense was intended; so none is taken," Fragile Storm's serene sister murmured. "I am Fragile Spear, Captain of the cruiser Retribution. But back to my point, Admiral; you disagree with how I prefer to notify the survivors of fallen subordinates?"
"In some respects," the human admiral said, sitting back on the bench he was sitting at. Beryl seemed to take the hint, and climbed out of her seat, stepping back to settle against Tempo's side, letting the human admiral occupy the seat she had vacated. "I don't at all disagree with... Tilting the perspective by which facts are viewed to allow the next-of-kin to believe their loved ones died nobly, but in general, we prefer to go into as few details as possible when making first notification. If the family needs to know more details, they can contact an outreach office to get more; of course, for a captain's letter for a fallen crewman, first notification will have been made by a Casualty Notification Officer some time before. Even so, it's best to be vague, lest someone who didn't have any details get some that horrify them and reopen the wound."

Jardin looked as if he were caught between the spear and the sword, but at the same time, he was absorbing everything the two older officers had to say. Fragile Spear raised her eyebrow. "Is vagueness... Comforting to humans, then? I have regretfully received three such notifications; each time, my daughter's superior wrote the details the way I would have. It is always hard, but I would not appreciate vagueness on their parts."
"My condolences," the human admiral said, almost immediately, inclining his head. "I lost my son in an antipiracy action ten years ago. You and I can take it - officers," he elaborated. "And if the notification is being made to a servicemember, I'd probably go into somewhat more detail, too, but generally, I wouldn't." Fragile Spear raised her eyebrow, and Storm sensed that her sister's opinion of the admiral was falling.
Tempo stepped in, sliding behind Jardin. "Admiral, Captain, Commodore, if I may?" The three of them looked up at her, and Fragile Spear nodded. "I believe the difference in notification preferences comes from the nature of the expected recipients. Humans do not have warrior castes as we do, and in all likelihood, the person receiving the notification will be a civilian. When notifying a Loroi's survivor, it is almost certain such notification will be being made to a warrior, who would be better-able to cope with the sudden shock of a loved one's loss than a civilian; with humans, as entry to the warrior academies is, I understand it, barred to none and acceptance is presumptive based on willingness to be trained to serve rather than on preexisting fitness based on warrior-caste upbringing, the survivors could lead any kind of life."

Jardin nodded, and sucked in a breath. "Yeah. My mother is an architect, my father's a florist. Neither of them would really feel better hearing, say, that I died with a rifle in my hands in pitched combat with five Umiak hardtops, as opposed to just being told that I was killed in action. Either way, it would hurt them, but the more details they received, the worse it would be, because then they'd imagine it... On the other hand, if you were telling Fireblade, I think she'd want and demand the full details. Down to the gun-camera footage, probably," he said, eliciting a smirk from the Unsheathed behind him, but she held her tongue in the spoken conversation. Fragile Storm could sense both mirth and a sense of dread coming from her fellow Unsheathed as Fireblade contemplated even the joking suggestion that she be notified in the event of Jardin's death, as if she feared the possibility of Jardin's demise. That was perfectly reasonable, as the two of them were unquestionably comrades-in-arms, and knowing what she knew about the teidar, Fragile Storm expected she would demand permission to go seek personal vengeance for Jardin.

She might even receive it, given how the Emperor seemed fond of the impossibly-dynamic human.

Fragile Spear gave Tempo's words some thought, and slowly she nodded. "I believe I see your point. I would not... Relish the thought of having to make notification-of-death-in-action to a craftswoman. I apologize, Admiral, for presuming less of you because of it. Surely you are best-positioned to judge how best to inform the survivors of fallen humans of their loved ones' demise, and I should keep that in mind."
"No offense is taken," Admiral Callan said, bowing his head. "We clearly have a lot to learn about each other's races." He looked to his right, down at the street, and nodded. "Looks like the parade's winding down. I have a lot of rear admirals and politicians to meet. So do you, Captain," he said, directing that to Jardin, who swalloed hard.

"Actually," Fragile Storm said, speaking up for the first time, "I require Captain Jardin for some time as well. I am Commodore Fragile Storm," she explained, quietly. "Jardin absconded with rather a lot of Loroi corvettes in the process of drawing the enemy away from a stricken fleet. Fewer than half of those corvettes have made it to Earth, and there is the matter of the captured TT-class superheavy and its escorts your people have apparently captured intact. I will be requiring reports on these events; and there is the matter of a decoration I am obliged to present him with; in front of the crew of the vessel he took command of, by our custom."

Admiral Callan grinned, as Jardin swallowed; very much, Fragile Storm thought, between the spear and the sword. He seemed not to be looking forward to either event. "Well, Captain Jardin," Admiral Callan said with a somewhat cruel grin. "An afternoon spent neck-deep in bullshit, red tape and politicians, or a report to a senior officer whom I can tell is just waiting for an explaination with regard to missing ships?"

"I don't suppose seppuku is an option?" Jardin asked, puzzling Fragile Storm; and indeed, the other Loroi with him. The bearded old human snorted.
"You are hereby under express orders not to ritualistically disembowel yourself with a sword, Captain. What's your second preference?"
Ritualistic disembowlment? Such a thing is done among humans? Fragile Storm asked, in alarm; confusion and skepticism were the responses from Jardin's party, while her own ataches turned to and began querying their human liasons.
"My preferences don't seem to matter, Admiral," Jardin said. "It seems both obligations are inescapable."
The old man grinned. "See, I knew you were a smart lad. I'm giving you an order to attend to our new allies' requirements first." He nodded to Fragile Storm. "If you're lucky, and it's a long decoration ceremony, you may not be done before the bullshit artists are done talking out of their brass and you can duck this round of meetings."
Last edited by ShadowDragon8685 on Sun Jun 26, 2016 11:41 pm, edited 10 times in total.

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

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Hours later, Fragile Storm was seated at her desk. Jardin stood rigidly at attention in front of her desk, still wearing his dress uniform, eyes locked straight ahead, over her head, at a point on her wall.

She had her answers now, and she was angry. She knew it was irrational to be angry under the circumstances, but she was still angry; angry at Jardin for concealing the fact he had concealed from them for so long, angry at herself for being forced to admit it's what she would have done in his place; angry at herself for being angry because the entire matter was as snow which had already melted.

So angry was she, in fact, that it penetrated her mental guard, and she heard her sister's voice in her head, in response. Commodore, is something amiss?
She also sensed wariness nearby; his Loroi ataches were seated on the observation couches in Retribution's bridge, and she sensed edginess on Fireblade's part, the other Unsheathed half-ready to spring into action.

She found herself angry again twice over; angry at Fireblade for being ready on an instant's notice to leap into action in protection of the human, and angry at herself for being angry at Fireblade; she would have been just as ready to spring into action if something or someone threatened her sibling.

With great effort, she mastered her anger, taking a deep breath. "Your people sent out scouts first, then; to locate and align yourselves with the first of whichever you met; the Hierarchy or the Union. Your ship, Bellarmine, encountered Tempest and was subsequently destroyed, but you were rescued and made contact with us. Unknown to you at the time, another of your scouts had already met the Hierarchy; but were unable to return expediently to Earth with the news because their logistics ship was destroyed, and they required the shell's aid to get home, aid which took some time - and no small amount of wheedling - for the shells to provide."

"Sir, yes sir," Jardin answered, stiffly, formally. She nodded.
"So the result was that, although members of your race began attempting to negotiate alliance with the Hierarchy before, in objective terms, you began your negotiation with the Union, word your negotiations reached Earth before word of theirs, and our respective governments entered into a tentative alliance."
Jardin nodded. "That is correct, sir."

"It has been years. Certainly the shells who had met your other scout identified it as being of the same class as your vessel? How do you account for their apparent complacency?"
Jardin stiffly answered, "I do not know, sir."

"Speculate, then," she all-but spat, and Jardin swallowed.
"I would speculate that the destruction of Bellarmine's wreck by Tempest was so thorough that the Umiak had nothing to examine; none of my... No remains, no technology, nothing. The only Umiak vessels which were in close enough proximity to examine her visually were destroyed by Task-Group Fifty-One. I can only conclude they never thought to transmit a picture back."

"I see. So, the shells, then, having taken years to finally get around to deciding to make use of your people, finally furnish your missing scout with fuel and send one of their largest vessels and a small escort fleet to your planet, presumably to 'impress the locals.' Unbeknownst to them, your race already considered yourself in alliance with the Loroi Union and at war with the Hierarchy. With an unknowing enemy flying into your arms, and advance notice courtesy of your border pickets, and with the little fleet of corvettes you absconded with from Task Group Seventy-Three, you set a trap. You made the ruse that your people had seized our vessels and taken the crew prisoner, and greeted the shells as if they were welcome allies."

"Sir, yes sir," Jardin replied, again as stiff as a post. She nodded.
"Having done so, you sent a ship full of 'diplomatic envoys' to greet them. Rather a large ship, that was, in fact, full of marines, who then began storming a TT-class Superheavy, with an estimated crew in excess of eight hundred."

Jardin nodded. "Yes sir, that is correct."
"Having done this, you then proceeded to spring the trap; boarding vessels approached and rapidly clamped onto the Shell vessels from close range, and you were apparently successful in siezing them all."

Jardin nodded. "Commodore, those are the facts."
Fragile Storm folded her hands on her desk - smaller than her old one, but still bearing the paperweight ornament he had given her. She let out a sigh.
"And how do you account for the seizure of the Umiak vessels? They certainly didn't surrender a superheavy without a fight."
Jardin shook his head. "Permission to speak freely?"

Fragile Storm inclined her head, and Jardin elaborated: "Frankly, the close fight is the only fight we have a prayer of winning against the Shells, but my race have been psyching ourselves up for the 'Bug War' since before we had space flight. In a close engagement, their technological advantages don't mean as much much; a railgun rifle will kill a shell just as dead as a shell's laser will kill one of our Marines, and unlike a space engagement, close quarters combat inherently takes place over ranges where they can't leverage any advantage out of the higher technological base. Hardtops are tough, and we may not have Unsheathed, but we have grenade launchers. In all honesty, in a close fight, we have the advantage, not the shells, same as the Loroi."

"Oh? You just said your race doesn't have Unsheathed," Fragile Storm asked, with a raised eyebrow, and Jardin shook his head.
"No, but you and I know that the Loroi would still be more than a one-to-one match for the shells in the ground fight even without the Unsheathed. I'm not saying it was easy, I'm not saying casualties were light, but without their ability to call upon endless reserves; with the collected fighting elite of my homeworld against primarily ship crew, not Umiak ground-assault troops? I've been in a gunfight with Umiak ground troops, I know what they're like, and I know what my people are capable of. This is not boasting, it is statement: our soldiers can engage the shells in a close fight, and unless they can bring a crushing numbers or tactical advantage to bear, we will win. The proof is floating in orbit right now."

"Yes, I've seen it. Quite impressive," Fragile Storm said, trying not to feel bitter. It was an impressive accomplishment to crow about, and some boasting was fully justified; even boarding teams consisting only of Unsheathed would have been hard-pressed to take a Superheavy intact. She had seen the casualty numbers, and the shells had made the humans pay a dear price in blood seizing the vessels; but they had taken them intact. Granted, they had used duplicity and deception to get into range to do so, but Fragile Storm saw no dishonor in so doing; victory is the most honorable thing of all.

It was reinforcement of what she had already come to suspect, and Jardin's words, unintentionally, reinforced it. His people already had a name for this conflict; a 'Bug War,' and she was very interested to know exactly how they had been preparing for it since before the advent of spaceflight. So she asked, "What did you mean when you said your people had been 'psyching' themselves up?"

"Oh." Jardin took on the hue of embarrassment. "Um... That's slang, of a sort. You know how soldiers will mentally fortify themselves for battle they know is coming? Rituals formal and informal, inspiring speeches, war-cries and the like?"
"I understood your meaning on that part," Fragile Storm said. "It is the latter bit which confuses me; the 'Bug War' phrase. How could your people have been readying themselves to do battle with an enemy hundreds of years before you knew it existed?"
"Oh, that." Jardin shrugged and smiled thinly. "We write a lot of fiction, an awful lot of it, well, speculative. A big, brutal war against some kind of swarming, nigh- or totally-incomprehensible, seemingly-numberless alien menace, usually one which is in appearance if not fact insectoid, with near- or totally-alien values and a near-or-total disregard for life, has been a recurring theme for a long, long time before we met the Orgus and were told the Umiak existed."

"Are you saying that your people have psychologically preconditioned yourselves to consider the Hierarchy an enemy, long before you even met them?" Fragile Storm raised an eyebrow, her anger subsiding in favor of curiosity, and Jardin shrugged.
"I... Suppose you could say that, yes." It fell into place for Fragile Storm, then; the humans might have switched sides, if they were behaving rationally. They certainly had had opportunity to do so; that TT and its escorts could easily have destroyed her fleet if they had ambushed them. She wasn't even willing to presume that the humans couldn't have done what they'd done to the shells to her fleet; with Jardin's intimate familiarity with Loroi and Loroi vessels, they would have had a far, far easier time. They could have wrote their Scout Corps' advance troops already working with Loroi in ground engagements off as lost, decisively sided with the Hierarchy by capturing her vessels.

The Hierarchy had clear advantages, even; siding with the shells offered them far better prospects of survival, as the shells were still grinding the Loroi down, but they were willing to gamble with their species' existence, throwing in with the Loroi in whatever way they could, because in some way, this was the war they wanted. The side they they had to pick. They were faced with a race so like them that members of one were sexually attractive in the eyes of the other; psychologically speaking, the similarities were so many that it was the differences which caught her offguard, and she couldn't tell which, if any, were innate and not cultural.
Opposing that race was a race which was not only repulsive visually and audibly, but was psychologically almost entirely alien; and moreso, it was a race that fit in perfectly with their mythologies, which looked forward instead of back. A race which fit perfectly with their mythologies as the great enemy; she was sure, suddenly, that phrases like Great Devourer, or The Swarm, would perfectly fit the Terrans' imagination.

She closed her eyes, and sighed. "Commodore? Are you okay?"
Fragile Storm was irritated. She was irritated now because she knew that, victory or destruction, the fate of her race and that of Jardin's were entwined. The only way she'd be rid of him was through death - his, or hers.

"I am well, Captain," she said, trying not to grit her teeth, and opened her eyes. "Your flight from the engagement site to your homeworld. Tell me of how it was achieved," she said, and Jardin straightened up again.

"Commodore. The Seventy-Third was engaged whilst I was aboard the scout corvette Swiftwind. Although the Hierarchy forces attacking did not have a prodigious advantage over the Seventy-Third, they engaged. After we repulsed their first attack, they somehow... Triggered their sleeper agents. Most of the ships had one aboard. The results were devastating. In the aftermath, they attacked a second time. It was at this time that I took it upon myself to assume command of Swiftwind, as I was the oldest and most experienced naval officer aboard."

"Mizol Tempo; Tozet Beryl. Both have been in more naval conflicts than you, and both have actually been bridge crew aboard Tempest before they were detached to accompany you across the galaxy."
Jardin shook his head, sighing. "Permission to speak frankly, Commodore?"
She raised her eyebrow. "I know I'm going to regret this, but granted."

"Your caste system is fucking strangling your ability to wage war," Jardin said, hard-edged, leaning down and placing his palms on the desk. "I've been bridge crew before; Bellarmine may have been technologically backwards compared to Loroi vessels, but I think you've seen enough to know that organizationally, doctrinally, we have our shit together. You'd recognize a human bridge crew in action. But a Soroin would give a Mizol a lot of shit and wouldn't want to listen to her in a fight; let alone a Listel. Frankly, either Beryl or Tempo should be more capable of assuming command on a Loroi vessel than me, but they're not; not because they're not capable, though they really should be sent to tactics school, they're both more than qualified; but because they're not conditioned to even think about doing so; and the Soroin crew wouldn't want to take orders from them."

Fragile Storm was right; she didn't like what he had to say. But she had, indeed, seen enough to know that humanity was a race with a warrior tradition which was long, proud, and disciplined. And she knew he was personally capable, even if she hated to admit it. "Then how did you convince them obey to you, if they would not obey someone of their own race?"

Jardin stepped back, and grinned. "I didn't. Tempo did. They'd reject her if she tried to take command, or at least hesitate to make sure there weren't any Torrai left aboard; but they're conditioned to listen to the Mizol when she's handing down rulings regarding who is in command. She declared that my rank and caste were equivalent to a Torrai Torret, and the crew fell in line. They didn't like it at first, but the ship was on fire, the command staff were smears on the conference room walls, and there were shell torpedoes incoming. None of them were ready to stand up and challenge a Mizol Parat's ruling on the equivalence of my rank in those circumstances, so they fell in. From there, it was just a matter of following our orders and holding the line. I had Tempo, and Beryl feeding me what I needed to know. Somebody challenged 'the alien's' competence to command, but Fireblade put the stop to that."

Fragile Storm nodded. "And so, you prevailed."
"Not me," Jardin said. "We did. I needed an ace pilot on the helm to survive that furball, and I had one in Arrir Talon. Fortunately, she can see a Corvette as a really, really big starfighter; she made Swiftwind move like most naval officers wouldn't dream is even possible. I needed a crash course on Loroi bridge doctrine and rules; Tempo knew all the steps to the dance, and she's a good- and fast - teacher. I needed an XO - Executive Officer, a Mallas in your terms, someone who could tell me if I was on track or grossly misreading the situation, and that was Beryl. Fireblade, of course, is Fireblade, and she kept the pack of rookies that we had to work with from panicking, or challenging me in the middle of a fight. And we prevailed."

She nodded. "I see. And afterwards?"
"The fleet was in tatters, the commander was dead, the big ships were having issues working out their command structure with holes blown right through them. The small ships often didn't have command staff at all. We redistributed our surviving Torrai through the fleet, but they were stretched thin. The Corvettes were lucky if they could spare a Soroin Tiris to command them, Frigates and Destroyers were lucky if they got a Nozotel. The commander of the fleet didn't have any staff to go around, so she just told me to continue commanding Swiftwind until the fleet could be reinforced; and she didn't want me to just take off alone in one ship, and couldn't spare enough corvettes to properly escort us. So I stayed where I was, and we fought a few more skirmishes."

"And then?"
"And then the shells demonstrated. They produced a massive fleet full of heavies, and hailed us. It was that bastard Kikitik-27."
"Kikitik-27 - the shell that communicated with Stillstorm during the engagement which ensued following your rescue, yes? Continue."

"He wanted me. He promised the fleet their survival if I were bound, placed in an escape pod, and jettisoned towards his fleet."
"That must have been... Tempting, to some," Fragile Storm asked, looking at the purple ornament between her hands.
"It was. I was already getting up to go when Fireblade yanked me off my feet."

Fragile Storm blinked. "You... Were volunteering to be handed over to the shells?"
Jardin closed his eyes, and nodded. "Seventy-Three was fucked. With its proper command staff intact, we could have held against Kikitik-27's fleet, but in our current state? Not a chance. But the fact that he wanted me, personally..."

Jardin sighed. "I was looking at the faces of a bunch of frightened teenagers; girls I'd come to know. It was a green crew, they were scared. I could see it, playing out across the whole fleet; kids, fresh out of academies, in a fight for their lives, and I was among the top ten oldest people in the whole goddamn fleet. Yes, if giving myself up would have bought their safety, I damn well would have handed myself over to that bastard shell. Fireblade wouldn't let me."
"Why not?"
"Aside from the 'critically valuable envoy of an alien race who must be protected at all costs' thing? She slapped the stupid out of me and reminded me that once I was in an escape pod, there was nothing holding twenty-seven to his word, and he could just open up with like, all of the torpedoes, without worrying much about killing me in the crossfire."

"She... Struck you?" Fragile Storm raised her eyes, and Jardin blushed, shrugging.
"Yeah. She straight-up... Like this." He put his hand behind his head, and suddenly slapped the back of it, hard. "Like I said, she slapped the stupid out of me. Called me a noble idiot and spelled out exactly what was going to happen if I got into an escape pod. I wouldn't be saving anybody, I'd be painting a target on them, because the shells couldn't be sure which vessel I was on - unless I was on none of them... I felt like an idiot, honestly, and rightly so."

Fragile Storm sat back in her chair, trying not to smile. The mental image of the red-haired Unsheathed smacking the back of her irritation's head was gratifying. "So, what did you do then?"
"Well, I'd tried to do something stupid, but the shells had us by the balls. Twenty Seven made it pretty clear that he wanted me alive, but not badly enough to refrain from simply annihilating us if we weren't forthcoming with me... He made the point with torpedoes."

The phrase he used made Fragile Storm's eyebrows raise, then she got it, and snorted. Colorful metaphor, she thought, and she heard Beryl respond.
He is full of them. Need I explain one? the short analyst asked.
That will not be necessary, Fragile Storm sent back, and laced her fingers together. "So, you were out of stupid options. What did you do then?"

"Something crazy," Jardin admitted. "They wanted me, badly enough to focus on me. So I told the commander we didn't have much time, and proposed splitting the fleet: She gave me the corvettes, and we'd lead the shells on a wild goose chase, buying time for everyone else to get the hell out of Dodge and come back with reinforcements. The original plan was to circle around the Steppes back to the exact same system... We got cut off. Kikitik-27 divided his forces, and attempted to trap us at the edge of known space... Only, the space beyond was known to me."

"The way here; to your homeworld." Jardin nodded at her.
"Exactly. Kikitik-27 had us in a box, though, and was circling it like a noose around our necks..." Jardin let out a quiet sigh. "That, and I didn't dare lead the buggy bastard back here."
"So, what did you do?"
"Like I said; something crazy. I called the fleet, and told them we were trapped; the shells were coming for us. Jumping out of the system would only buy us time, we needed to lose them. I laid out that we had basically three options: turn and fight and die gloriously, run and be chased down by the shell jump-capable gunships in the next system and die gloriously, or take a huge gamble and roll the dice with all our lives."

"You were asking a fleet full of junior officers and green crew what they wanted to do," Fragile Storm asked, incredulous.
"I was. All of our options sucked. Two of them gave us an opportunity to maybe do a lot of damage and take a lot of shells with us, and the third offered us some hope of survival. We decided to go with the 'something crazy' option, as it had worked for us so far."

"I know I'm going to regret asking this; what did you do?"
"We long-jumped," Jardin said, quietly. Fragile Storm felt her mouth dry, as he continued, "Talon and I ran a lot of numbers, and worked out that, theoretically, it would be possible for us to skip a system. Optimal conditions, more or less, for this kind of bullshit - perfect straight-shot, two systems that I'd seen relatively recently and had Bell's sensor data for... It was completely crazy, but it could work, in theory, if you were desperate and caught between a rock and a hard place. So we gave the fleet our jump numbers, charged the jump drives, and said any prayers that came to mind. We overshot the first system, skipped off spacetime, and emerged into realspace in the second system... Most of us."

Fragile Storm stared at him. What he was describing was the height of insanity. She wanted to call him a liar, but, sickeningly, she knew he wasn't. He was just that lucky. "Continue." It was all she could say.
Jardin sighed. "We lost about a fifth of the fleet; most of us came out within an AU of the star. Some of them might have ended up inside it, some might have... Well..." He trailed off, swallowing, hard, and Fragile Storm got the impression he was wracked with guilt about it. "Anyway, we lost some ships there. Some more came out of hyperspace too close to the star, they got... Scorched. Damaged. We rallied together, got ourselves moving. Ditched the ships that weren't going to make it into the star, after we evacuated their crew and drained their fuel. We then just... Kept jumping. Towards my home; towards Earth. We had to abandon several ships along the way; we needed the fuel, the supplies, so we laid them down on asteroids to recover later. It took us a while, but we made it, and then the shells showed up and we laid a trap for them. Two weeks later, you showed up."

Fragile Storm sat back, and folded her hands in her lap, considering the human in front of her. The scenario he was describing was a nightmare; the escape, an impossible stunt. She was going to have to put more than one decoration on him for this. Probably decorations for quite a few people; the navigational data alone from his ships would be invaluable to Loroi researchers. If he had successfully performed a long-jump with a fleet of corvettes and a survival ratio of 80%, that was worth studying. That could insert an extremely destructive fast-attack force behind Hierarchy lines if it could be replicated; even if the crews were resigned to die in the process, they could lay waste to vast swathes of the Hierarchy's industrial base if it could be done again.

"I see, Captain Jardin," she said, quietly. "Dismissed. Go see to your ships, their crews. I expect formal reports from the commanders of all your surviving vessels by the end of day."
Jardin stood to attention, smartly saluted her, and turned on his heel, walking out of her office. Fragile Storm stood up, carefully. She took her drinking glass from the drawer of her desk, set it on the table, and took the bottle of fermented berries from her shelf.
Open, she took a sniff at the neck of the bottle; its scent was sharp and mildly unpleasant, but not offensively so. She poured about a finger's depth of dark red liquid into the fat, shallow glass, lifted it to the light, peered through it. Then she put the glass to her lips, tilted it back, and closed her eyes as the sharp-tasting, sharp-smelling mildly poisonous liquid slid smoothly into her mouth.
Last edited by ShadowDragon8685 on Mon Jun 27, 2016 12:25 am, edited 6 times in total.

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by sunphoenix »

Man these are nothing short of Totally AWESOME! :) Great writing! Wish you could illustrate it... but I've got a clear anime' version of your described events playing in my mind already! Can't wait for the next installment! :)
PbP:
[IC] Deep Strike 'Lt' Kamielle Lynn
[IC] Cydonia Rising/Tempest Sonnidezi Stormrage
[IC] Incursion Maiannon Golden Hair
[IC] TdSmR Athen Rourke

"...you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is Kill him."

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

saint of m, I'm not sure if that PM I sent actually went through - I think it's stuck in drafts mode somehow.
Would you like me to stop writing? It was never my intention to usurp your character or turn a series of comic vignettes into a serious drama, but that's the kind of thing I like to write, so that's kind of where my fingers wandered with it... Anyway, if you'd like me to stop, I will.

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Hālian »

Even if you must, don't stop writing. Make a fic of your own if you have to, so we can keep reading your glorious writing. (Suggestion: TdSmR.) :3
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

Carl Miller wrote:Even if you must, don't stop writing. Make a fic of your own if you have to, so we can keep reading your glorious writing. (Suggestion: TdSmR.) :3
TdSmR?

Anyway, if you want something else of mine to read, try the following:
Bioluminescent Nights and Bioluminescent Dreams are Avatar fanfic, (James Camereon's, not Earthbending,) set five years before that lunkhead Jake Sully shows up on Pandora and ruins all of the things.
Star Trek: Outsider (Not Star Trek-Outsider crossover, as that would be over in approximately one season and most likely end with Emperor Greywind signing a treaty with the Umiak envoy over a cup of Tea, Earl Grey, Hot; rather, I chose the tagname for much the same reason Outsider got its tagline, in that it has to do with someone who is very much an outsider.)

Note that both stories are NSFW, the former far moreso than the latter.
Last edited by ShadowDragon8685 on Mon Jun 27, 2016 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Tamri »

To initially doesn't pretend to "hardness" and 100% "seriousness" of the story this is very good fic. In my opinion, to write - is worth it. In the extreme case, you'll will be running in parallel write two timeline ;)

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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by Hālian »

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Carl Miller wrote:Even if you must, don't stop writing. Make a fic of your own if you have to, so we can keep reading your glorious writing. (Suggestion: TdSmR.) :3
TdSmR?
Tobi das Sireis mi Rimil (The World on a Razor's Edge), an aborted RP on this forum where first contact occurs not with the ECS Bellarmine but with the Space Shuttle Challenger. Tis a damn shame it fizzled out, because I liked the premise.
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Re: What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

Post by sunphoenix »

Carl Miller wrote:
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Carl Miller wrote:Even if you must, don't stop writing. Make a fic of your own if you have to, so we can keep reading your glorious writing. (Suggestion: TdSmR.) :3
TdSmR?
Tobi das Sireis mi Rimil (The World on a Razor's Edge), an aborted RP on this forum where first contact occurs not with the ECS Bellarmine but with the Space Shuttle Challenger. Tis a damn shame it fizzled out, because I liked the premise.
Same here.. I was playing the sole human character~ [TdSmR] Athen Rourke... and I made one post and the DM never returned to the game... honked me off to no end! :)
Last edited by sunphoenix on Tue Jun 28, 2016 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
PbP:
[IC] Deep Strike 'Lt' Kamielle Lynn
[IC] Cydonia Rising/Tempest Sonnidezi Stormrage
[IC] Incursion Maiannon Golden Hair
[IC] TdSmR Athen Rourke

"...you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is Kill him."

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

Post by ShadowDragon8685 »

sunphoenix wrote:Same here.. I was playing the sole human character~ [TdSmR] Athen Rourke... and I made one post and the DM never returned to the game... honked me off to no end! :)
And that's what sucks about Play by Post. I wholeheartedly endorse using Roll20.

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