賢い ~ one

(drafted and backed July - Sept 2019)

 

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Death be wise to the living fool.

~ the ghosts of kashikoi ~

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"! Reverberations !"

 

(Pipsiveya voiced over from 'The Rough Storybook')

A planet explodes.  The tectonic shards are thrown spinning outward, distant glimpse of cities erupting and escape ships fleeing, some failing, few succeeding.

Time speeds as though the shards' inertia never slows.  They part and fan out while another planet, lush with bright spots of civilization passes through the forming wide asteroid belt.

The passing new asteroids are drawn into its gravitational pool, bright spots going out as escape swarms again as tiny dots.  As the planet passes in it's arc, an asteroid misses and is thrown into space, tumbling on toward the next.

Slowing into real time as it enters the atmosphere.

('Mama Said Knock You Out' (undefeated remix) by LL Cool J)

 

The long arc of its entry over a single massive continent, green and mountainous, set in an otherwise watery world.

 

 
~ Gaea ~

In the Era of Kron

The molten core melds its irons and nickels with the carbon of ionic burn, caught in cratered vats along the surface before burning off, leaving the surface from porous to smooth, then hard cratered after a flare-through.

Deeper into the core caverns, the ingredients bubble hot.  Ionic shots like sparks as the the surface collapses across then breaks off into fletchet chunks caught in the pull to follow fanning out.  

 

From the surface anti-air engage, chipping off pieces but remaining the core.

 

Mountain view incoming, what remains is now more molten than stone.  The flash explosion burns through the trees of the surrounding wood, bending them to sharp angle, a wave of ash pouring from the furthest green edges still green.

A caravan of stout machine walkers passes its distance, mechanisms designed from the herd of dinosaurs surrounding as homes.  Platform side panels hang open as floors to inner fire-pits and cookery, sleeping surrounded. 

 

Long steely feathers mixed with shorter (six foot) red ones decorate the machines, the beasts painted one rider in front on triceratops, painted to match, watching through the scope of his rifle (Qetzo).

 

Doors begin pulling closed.

 

They walk among herbivore dinosaurs, 'dragons', mostly short pack walkers with the two adult long-neck in herd and their child, raising heads and looking back as the ashen mist passes.

The sound comes after with an ashen gust.

賢い

('Kashikoi' ~ means 'wise')

 

Song over, the boom's rumbling echo fading.  A pressure gust brings the trailing last wisps of ash and dust through the Gaeani valley before a long silence across a makeshift and temporary loading platform.

Load workers, armed and armored but independent of one another are stopped in chatter concerning the flash before returning to labors in and from a medium bulk cargo carrier, refitted for war.

Standing on the hill watching over in the open wind, a woman wrapped in deep red bandages of blood's color aged by dust over goggles and re-breather.  Rifle on her back wired to her goggles, she watches the valley's loading platform, view blurred through one eye's zoom.

 

A dark coat over, a belt clipped with ammo and a small pistol for reserve, a blade strapped handle down over the sternum.  Her right goggle-piece with open fittings, the left is scoped and wired to the back of the belt beneath the coat.

Hunter - (voiced over, re-breather adding a nearly hypnotic reverb and flange effect over harsh crackle) "The wise say that Yin teaches in temple libraries, that power is knowledge."

~ At the base of the valley, mercenary in unmatched appearance, they load holed crates into the cargo bay of a ship, grass landed.

Hunter - (vo) - She pulls and preps the rifle, bandage wrap all the way down her arms.  "While the wise of more worldly temples say that Yang preaches in gamblers' dens, that power is money."

~ In the nearby wood-line, a bird flies from a bush, a smooth line seen.

~ A D'Wa-kil (true Dwarven) sniper in the bushes, unmoving and barely visible, covered in bush.  The lightest movement of a heavy finger over a button to over the trigger's guard.

A tiny light next to it lights, the color of sunlight on green in shadows.

Hunter - (vo) - "So what is wise ?  Everyone can tell you that.  Everyone always knows what you should do.  And they'll tell you.  All the time"

~ The same light appears on another sniper's scope, marking the position.

Hunter - (vo) - "And they will say ... and they will say ... and they will say ... so many things ..."  She puts her goggle eye to the scope, locking it in.

~ Another sniper's scope triangulates the locations of the six other snipers with his own, then the sighted mercenaries marked for each in threes.  The bird lands on his barrel.  

 

He smiles.  It chirps and flies.

Thumbs a switch and the scope mag-locks into her goggle eye, moving with her subtitles.  The other snipers start pinging in with their targets by threes.  She scopes through the ship's cockpit to the pilot checking the panel normally.

 

Hunter - "But it's always something DIFFERENT !" 

The pilot flops back hard in the chair bouncing back forward over the controls and headless, seen through a hole in the thick port glass melting in a growing circle as the shot is then after heard.  

 

Simultaneous shots echo through the valley as seven mercs fall among the loaders.  Another seven.  Another, all matched to the first echo's pulse.

The last trails of gusting ash rolls past to a further distant launch pad with it's dull aftershock to the last echo.  A contrary gust in the gather as a similar ship takes off before jumping away causing another discordant wisp, dragging the outward engine smoke and debris storm violently inward to the point of it's departure with a twist to nothing.

View out to space, past the pelted planet, lights gone then the forming asteroid belt.  A black ship, seen in space only where it blanks the stars and by the light of rocket fire sent and returned, finishes a well and brightly decorated war-cruiser.

The cruiser dips it's bow helplessly toward the nearing planet, hull showered with guided mines into high atmospheric destruction as the black ship jumps away spiraling off a distracted mine.

Jupiter's eye passes view, a well structured base at it's core, the nature of the eye cloud surrounding it appearing sub-atmospheric, a chemical oasis in the surrounding gasses.  Sifting craft with broad sails collecting pass beneath the drifting view.

Ending over Nibiru, the civilization as once was.

The departing ship from Gaea ports back into view with a hard decompressing gust dragging ash from Gaea over the wide central street made for entry, on the other side of the gate from 'Gaslight'.  Heavy fans beneath the porous street draw the clicking detritus and smoke down from the air as it turns for distant docking toward the high towers.
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Techno-primitive is a word, and I just made it up ~

The resulting civilization old enough to have used up it's unique resources but established enough to continue without collapse, while maintaining it's technological stability.

The technology becomes honed into a nothing wasted mentality, with parts fitted for multiple function.  A 'plug and play' civilization, in all ways very durable.  Hard steel become yellowed nearly as brasses over aeons of smog and life, smog now gone from the air with the burning off of local resource, life remaining.

Deep hued stones with intentionally placed natural green flowing over in flower.  High bridges connecting low buildings, here an inspiration for the schools and temples of Sanctuary can be seen.  Towers grow higher from the main streets, out to nowhere.

The people are mostly human then humanoid, with the ruling class and temple high priesthood distinctly and universally alien of Apollo's kind.  The people would be called 'Nibiri', while the aliens unknown.  They simply are, and are referred to as such.  Everyone knows.

By our standards the majority of the populace would be considered upper middle class, with only the royalty and court considered rich, and other worlds poor.  Happy cattle before the war, but a fearful elevation after.

All is peaceful, but as the result of regrowth immediately after a massive war won which never touched close.  A desperate calm, an exhausted joy driving back home with hope to normalcy.

The tone of a place.

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A harsh vector graphics style readout, dull blips tracking an asteroid's arc to Gaea.  The tech is aesthetically based on what we thought 'the future' would look like, back in the eighties. 

Screens with magnifiers, hard switches next to clackety keyboards of dull brass materials directly from Vulcan's way in 'Sabine Tale'.

 

The walls are  broad doors between pylons, swung open to the surrounding park terraces filled with distant training and passage, docking fliers taxing those here and there.

 

A partially armored man, the pieces suited to flexibility, sits in a library at a console lined with users similarly garbed among those perhaps more an officer class, seated and searching books throughout.  

 

Fingers tap on the table top, a pause then a final switch.  Data uploads to the screen, hard cam of the attack ship.  The stars blacked out in it's passing, flashes of hull in the exchanging fire.  Fingers tap ...

A harsh image of 'the hunter' onscreen, taps ... an image of equal poor quality next to, compared to the hunter, marked 'Arsinoe'.

He pulls a cord from his belt and plugs it into the machine, takes the data, uploads a search parameter.

A glance around, he enters the algorithm manually (via the Lorentz Contraction Theorem run at bell curve acceleration for pure nerd joy).  He pulls a map depicting a theoretical landing site, the simplest out of main port over the planet.

Crosses with sat data from three years before, tracking asteroids from the destroyed planet.  Then 12 years before, the ship's calculated landing.

Compared to the meteor's impact.

A satellite over Gaea looses star-sight, then regains.  He pulls the cord.

('Bot' by Chuck D)

Out the library and through the open walkways.

The parks filled with line and filed warriors in training, open halls mingled with librarians and philosophers, more warriors to task.  It can be noted the older the more scarred, the greater likelihood of mechanical limb and plating.

Comparable to the Timepiece crew.

As he walks through, the tone of a war recently won, that subtle arrogance while surrounded by the evidence of it's losses.  A quietude which an outsider would call perfection, in ignorance.

Vehicles more likely a brass than steel, an opulent society, but with the tone of cost.  Beautiful vehicles looking a bit too old to those who would know, a world where all the hovering sports cars are dinged.

 

A weather controlled environment with no need of concern for fluctuation, as evidenced by the ring arcing over in the sky, the clouds wisping from it among the docking warships.  

 

Nearly the same as seen in Gaslight even so long ago, but as if a prior evolution more than the latter being a technological advancement, these seeming more alive and herded above, feeding at the ring.

The young warrior monk walks into the nearby connected housing, his home.  The walls like the rest are open, with walkways across to other buildings and the personal dock, air traffic passing above and below.

Past a computer console with a sword stuck through the monitor and into the wall behind, to the wall of weapons.  Pistols, well bayoneted go to the legs, go-bag followed by the sword's empty sheath at the side.  He yanks the sword from the computer and spins it to sheath

Out to the patio, ship docked.  Up the plank and through, he passes the 'autopilot', a self out-wired out wired repair drone, become intelligent by it's own improvisations.  'Auto'.

He drags heavy cables from his arms and spine, up to the heavies from the back of his head, framed in.  It leads through the deck as the monk walks to the command console, sits and throws up his feet as the ship takes off.

Through the flight-ways, impatient then twirling over, then to the long road from the Nibiru Gate, seen in fallen to decay by the era of 'Ishi' and 'Gaslight'.

In the wide expanse the ship jumps, curling a wisp of that world's pollution behind with it's own violently, in the vacuum of departure.

________

 

In silence the black ship ports in shaking it's ions briefly, darking out a spot of stars over Gaea.  Tiny lights spark in the atmosphere below, as unknown objects enter in the hundreds, then nothing.

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~ the Decibel ~

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~ two

A ship bursts from the Nibiru gate over it's central boulevard cleared fro such chaos (it's a rough gate). The world slightly different, back when the ships still matched the pavement.  Two children inside.

Their ship, 'The Junker', appears to be a sealed and refitted hover-car.  The rusted hull of a once a high end model, now junk with a jump-core strap-bolted and welded to, rattling too much around the welds.

An uncontrolled spin on jump exit, struggle righted to nose for the strip leading from the main temple gate at the furthest end of the landing, ships lined for emergency departure.  Patrol craft docked along the ring dip their noses in examination as though alive, scanning then returning.

Gaining control veer travel for the long over-streets among the sky-ways, airships drifting in their porting lanes, surface traffic walks and drives the streets below.  The young boy passenger stares planted to the window in excitement, the young girl annoyed with the traffic.

They arrive at the temple structure, awaited by the teacher Strophius.  His species is Nibiri, an alien of the same species as Apollo, here the ruling class among a mixed populace.  Before him, after exiting their junker ~

Arsinoe - "Well here we are !  I'm stealing the ship now."

Strophius cocks his head.

...

Orestes - "... it's half mine ... we ... built it together."

Arsinoe - "With stolen parts.  And now I'm stealing your half.  Have fun at the temple !"  She turns back to the ship.

The young Orestes looks up to Strophius, seeking authority to settle the dispute.  The teacher watches Arsinoe walk away.  A laugh.  Notices Orestes.

Strophius - "If it be justice you seek in this, then it's yours to pursue."

Orestes looks at him angrily, shakes his head and charges Arsinoe.  Arsinoe turns sharply to a left palm strike under the right shoulder turning him and a push on the back, stumbling him to his hands and knees back before Strophius.

Arsinoe turns and walks back to it.

Kneeling before the teacher, Orestes looks up.

Strophius - "So go steal your half a stolen ship then.  Certainly couldn't involve the temple."  He turns for the temple with an extended look.

Orestes hangs his head, looks back at Arsinoe.  Back down.  Spits and gets up, following the teacher.  Stops and turns.

Orestes - "Why won't you just stay !?  It's fucking paradise !"  He cries.  "It's just like all the pictures ..."

Arsinoe stops, looks around, people meditating, simple laughs at things she probably wouldn't ... trees and grass, the sky-way above, overgrown with life, traffic clouds above it.

Arsinoe - Looking back, "You never would have left that place if I'd told you the truth.  And I never could have made you happy.  I'm sorry.  I'm taking the ship now.  Be well."

She enters and launches.

('Giovanni' by Jamila Woods at 0:55)

(I like to sneak music and videos into the soundtracks that will make the reader/viewer go see the original.  This song is a perfect example)

The ship lifts off, above then jumps, a gust of wind.  Strophius looks back in annoyance to presume it was too close, or at least rude.

~ Arsinoe flies, a tear restrained.

Temple training, Orestes practices among them.

~ She continues flight, adolescent, the controls more refined, a shoddy rifle leaning in the co-pilot seat.

Orestes trains as an adolescent among the other students.

~ As an adult flipping newly set controls, face wrapped in bandages, a fine rifle in the other seat.

Orestes trains as an adult among the other warriors, high monks wandering the lines, observing.  Strophius stands next to a throne among attendants high over the field.  He leans in to whisper to the apparent ruler, cut from 'Giovanni' at 2:50.

 

('Shut 'em Down' (functionalist version) by Public Enemy)

 

Three pods at the lead in a grove, at the base of the mountainside open.  The trees lay scorched and bent from the asteroid's impact, an ashen mist all around mixed with something more ghostly.

The pod doors slide open, three armored soldiers, Iris, Ocypete, and Arke exit each their own, the landers built only for standing room among tools to be dismantled from the works.  Uniforms tattered, smooth masks war cracked over their faces, the Hecate.

~ Temple training, temple hospitals operating.

As the surrounding field of pods empty, naked soldiers emerge, slight disorientation in the mist.  They gather for the center from the burn bent and side-rooted trees, while ancestor ghosts from the destroyed world dance from the asteroid's mountainside impact.

~ Temple training, temple hospitals, prosthetics painful applied.

The ancestors descend into the field, past the Hecate and among the soldiers, some whispering as a loved one departing, others shrieking in furious strike.  From the woods come, soldiers and comrades lost, standing near their brothers and sisters.

~ Sparks from the tuning, screams, patients held down, temple training.

The dance among them continues to madness, the shrieking strikes lash their bodies until they can feel them twitching, ancestors and brethren thick among the mist until it clothes them in dark robed rags and bandages.

~ Temple training.

Among the the landed tribe a family, man woman and adult daughter (Lord Charon, Lady Styx, and Selene) emerge approaching the Hecate, the man glaring at the lead Iris as the pass into the woods.  

 

A gust of ash with a sound hissing death's rattle from beneath the mask. 

________

The Decibel lands.

Auto - From the console comm and echoing down the halls, "Why ?"

Orestes - "Why ?"

Auto - "Why."

Orestes - "Are ..."

Auto - "We ..."

Orestes - "Here."

Auto - "Why."

Orestes rises, walks the hall to the mess halfway where Auto watches him, a small bag on the counter.

Orestes - "They always chase the asteroids.  The 'temple teaches' that it's ours to know ..."

Auto - Interrupting, "Did you say 'Arsinoe' ?"

...

Orestes - "... the truth."

...

Auto - Watching him gear, "The temple is wrong.  Knowing isn't power."

Orestes - "No ?"

Auto - "No."

He looks at his fingers.

Auto - "I am."

...

Stares a moment ... smiles and turns.

Auto - "Don't forget your cookies."

...

The bag snatched.
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~ The Marketplace (gin shot) ~

He walks from the smoke as the ship lifts off behind, the marketplace.  The planet's populous exemplified here in the diversity of the crowd.  His path and random inquiries among vendors can be seen among the passing views of the crowds and construction.

('Money Jungle' by Duke Ellington)

The peoples gathered represent the basic fairy tale 'creatures' but simply.  Sidhe (pronounce 'She') are usually considered 'dark elves' or blue, because of the warpaint and mud dreaded hair of Irish warriors.

Here they're like anyone else.  Among them are an aquatic people as well, Mer, but you wouldn't know, and Gaeani, the People of the Earth (the ones who are actually from here).

They have a wary welcome and tend to avoid the marketplace, but the young sneak there out of curiosity, and to bring back bad habits.  Native friends in Arizona might consider it like 'Flag'. 

With one planet lost and another fallen in the system, refugees are apparent of all kinds.  The market was expanded quickly, somewhat rickety here and there to accommodate with a looming stress.

The wanders around show a weariness amid celebration, the war over but recently.  An occasional mourning parade passes, followed by waves of celebration.

Dwarves are played by, and are, Dwarves as they are in the real world.  This is their marketplace, made by them to suit the outsiders on behalf of the Gaeani.  Small doors barely noticeable to most and high among rafters overhead most couldn't use easily.

High arcing pole systems and rooftop to track people of interest from across the rooftops, keeping silent pace.  At the base of the market in the street, guards pole over as a net pulls up a fleeing thief.  Cheers from the crowd, the net's dragged away.

Arsinoe drops a bag of coins on a merchant's counter, then a handful of mismatched scattered across, bloodstained.  The trader looks up.

Trader - "So mercs !"

Arsinoe - "All yours if you can profile tell me where they come from."

Trader - "Oh !  Such lovely and bloodstained coinage which I cannot spend here."

She stares ...

Arsinoe - "You'll need that mess for blood typing.  I need the full deal."  Glances to the bag, "That, I ran through the river."  Sliding the coins on the counter closer to him, "But these should do for the sample, and I have no doubt you 'll find a way to spend the rest ... somewhere."

Trader - Staring back he pokes the bag with the nub of his pen, coinage sound.  "Well I suppose it is an inarguable large bag of money I'm assuming they won't come looking for."  

 

Arsinoe - "They're dead."

 

Trader - "The exact kind of thing I keep asking you not to tell me."

Arsinoe - "But you do feel better now."

 

Trader - "Hm."  Scoops up the bag and drops it behind the counter, looks at her and lowers his eye-glass, "I suppose you'll need me to write it all down for you too then yes ?"  He snaps on the rubber gloves.

...

Arsinoe - "Please."

________

The Decibel bursts out of port (in the past, still stock, without Auto's cabling), burning into Tartarus' (the destroyed planet) atmosphere.  Orestes, geared for war slumped bleeding over the controls.

The ship shakes from another strike.  Spinning, the jolt wakes Orestes, console sparking, he slams the autopilot button to stabilize.  He stumbles through to the aft, finding the engineer dead.

Pulls him off the console, ship hit again, he falls with him.

He reaches up to run the repair drone controls, pries the stuck drone hatch (Auto's core inside).  Another strike, hits his head and out.

~ Darkness as the drone looks down.

The drone carried him to the med bay, ship bombarded.

~ Darkness as the controls activate, surgical arms reaching out.

The sound of ground impact grinding to a skid ... another strike to finish ... another ... another ... engines soar away.  A spark flash sees Orestes thrown from the gurney, surgical arms attempting to follow.

~ Darkness, silence and the sound of burning.
________

Trader - To Orestes, looking up while taking notes on the bloody coinage, "I'm sure I'd remember a lady like that.  Sounds ... sassy ..." 

 

Orestes - Furrowed brow of disbelief, then notices the small pile, "Those coins ... they're all from beyond the gate ... different places, I don't even know some of those ... "

Trader - "Oh yes ... quite the collection."

Orestes - "And covered with blood."

Trader - "Is it ?  Hard to tell so colorful ... we don't all bleed the same you know ..."

('Let the Good Times Roll' by The Cars)

As the music starts, Orestes is distracted by the sound of the crowd dispersing in noise (as if distracted by the song's into vocals), a chatter and pointing as the chases always do entertain the crowd.

He looks back to the vendor.  An eyeroll at the coins he continues with.

Orestes - "And what of .. "  Leans in like a secret, "the Brotherhood ?"

Distracted ...

Vendor - Loudly, "Brotherhood !  If they were shopping ... here they'd be !  Haven't seen any."

A woman runs by and is dragged into a net.  Cut through, she drops, the daughter Selene.  She looks at him and pulls a stolen fruit from her bag, taking a bite.

...

Annoyed to the side and spits a seed.  She looks back at him.  "Hi."  Smiles wide and takes off running, followed by the Dwarvenkind above.

...

Orestes - Turning to chase, "I know you're lying to me !"  He's off.

Vendor - "Oh so wise and yet ... off he goes ..."

As Orestes chases after her, the Dwarves above pursue closer, in his path.  The guard captain watches through a scope, closes it and pulls a com.  Grabs a rope, launched by trebuchet to the sky.  More follow his lead.

Through the streets he follows her, poles crossing in front, nets pulled and leapt from, swinging through on ropes.  In her path, a gate slides down in her path.

She runs up it to a back-flip, pulling her pistol and firing through the left high pin, landing low.

Burst sheathing through the weak spot, the other side.  Orestes runs up the skewed incline to the railings above, toeing the under-size, then cutting across a rooftop as she turns a corner ahead.

His path ended, he flips just past a crowd in the street, just after she breaks it, into a hard fouled landing.  She turns the corner ahead.

A loud shot.

The guard captain (Shaw) holsters and pulls another, loading a tranquilizer, crowd clearing.  Six more Dwarven guards hit the ground, circling down on glide-suits.

Shaw - "Temple son.  What are you doing ?"

Orestes stops, looks to the corner she turned, she's back standing there watching ... then spits annoyed.

Shaw - "Temple son."

Orestes looks back at him.

Shaw - "You're blocking my shot."

Orestes looks back at her, she takes another bite, back at Shaw.

...

Orestes - "I'm sorry !"

He chases off then sidesteps a tranquilizer, looking back annoyed.  Shaw shrugs and reloads, trebuchet rolling up behind.

She pushes from the crowd at the market gate running.  A simple lot with random mulling and vehicles parked among beasts.  She stops turning.

Orestes pushes from the annoyed crowd.  Stops when he sees her.  He holds out his arms a bit, leaning in as though to 'catch' her.  She lashes chewing and takes another bite.

Selene - "What are you doing ?"

...

She spits a seed.  He rights a bit.

Orestes - "What ?"

She takes a broad step backward, market commotion growing behind him.  He starts to turn to see.

Selene - "I said (he looks back at her).  What are you doing ?"

He stands straight and cocks his head.

Her bot pops out from the crowd, banging the back of his head with a tire, knocking him to his knees.  A space mine with it's spikes forge stretched and bent for handles and pegs, one large wheel through the center, over the engine she rides.

Controlled more like a horse than a motorcycle, the pegs are like reigns while it registers the leans and works with her, clearly her own creation.

 

The original mine's attracting magnetos replaced with the AI, set to wheels but it's behavior follows the pattern of the mine, to charge and attack things it's curious about.  Round with a spike forged seat to the back, eyes slotted red.

 

She rides it pretty much like hugging a giant balloon if it was a big-wheel with black streamers from the handlebars (after thought, it would almost look like a really evil Bubbles head from Powerpuff Girls I with the streamers.  Acceptable)

 

She skids off on it.

He looks around, then steals a launch bike (high upward propulsion, made for mountain crevice and woodland treetop skipping, but kind of hard to control on normal flat ground in any straight line).

Orestes - To the angry man nearby, "I'll bring it back !"

He takes off, not prepared for the upward thrust.

She takes the straight line approaching the asteroid pelted woods ahead, guards landing past the gate, Shaw approaches the man appearing to own the launch bike.

Orestes continues to chase, stabilizing control along a high pains hill, her path to the wood.  Curious caravaners watch through scopes and a laugh at his control.  Making the wood's edge, she skids off the bot.

He lands with a hard grind near, dismounting, approaching almost friendly and starting to talk with a smile, she throws a rock and hits him hard in the head.  He falls to his knees, blur, looking up as she scoops another from the ground, Brotherhood gathering behind her.

Blacks out.

~ three

Orestes awakens floating face up between two Hecate, third in lead, walking through the bent wood, brotherhood gathering around watching, ghosts mixing in his blurring eyes among them.

Unable to move beyond a struggle and a turning of the head, he looks around, relaxing.  Brotherhood (which includes women) disassemble drop-pods, pulling tools and parts from their chambers, nose-cone being fitted for vats.

Workers look up then at each other noting him, some with a laugh before returning to work, some glaring and stepping forth, tools gripped.

Orestes - Whispers to himself, looking at the gathering, "Can I speak ?  I can hear."  A ringing pulses in and fades as the left Hecate looks down at him with a hiss.

The lead looks back, they approach Charon seated in a carved chair, carving.  One armrest missing from his own, two completed and roughly ornate surrounding, he finishes his armrest for his left side.

Charon - Checks the left to right match on the armrests, continues to carve, "Temple son."  He glances up.

Orestes' head arcs painfully backward against will to see him upside down.

Charon - "Why are you here ?"

Orestes - Pain as the pressures pull, "There ... was a thief !"

Charon - "A thief.  Your speeder.  Not of the temple, they tell me."  The lead Hecate walks to and leans to his ear, he listens.  "I see."

Orestes head pulls down harder, his shoulders crinkling upward.

Charon - "So temple son, tell me you.  Why are you here ?  And this time.  Use wisdom."  Orestes neck cranes hard.

Orestes - "I ... was drawn."

Charon - "Drawn why.  Temple son."

...

Orestes - "I ... I don't know ..."

Charon - "Ah."  He leans over him.  Smiles with bits of flame from between his teeth in exhale then as he speaks, "I believe you."

Orestes drops hard.

Charon - "Leave us."

He leans back to continue his carving, the Lady Styx and Selene walk from the woods behind and take their chairs as the Hecate and brotherhood gather blocking them from view, forcing Orestes to rise stumbling to back away.

They fill forcefully and block the path behind on his way forced from the wood, occasionally shoved tripping in his stupor.  As he exits, he finds the bike crushed.

He looks back.

Selene - Alone.  "Your name is Orestes."  She backs into the shadow, a fruit with a bite taken rolls to him from the shadows.

Orestes - Picking up the fruit, examining the bite-mark then looking to the silence in the woods, "And yours is Selene."

...

The long walk home.

('Bolero' by Maurice Ravel)

As he walks, sunset to the side, along high hills and over the plains back to the market, stupidly carrying the fruit.  He passes a strolling herd, another mixed with caravan, the long walk home.

 

In the distance the Thunderbird roars over, taking another from the herd as the rest bay back at its departing tail.  Arrival the the market, Shaw with the guardsmen, the bike's owner at his side with Strophius from the temple.

Orestes - "I am so ... sorry.  I'm sure the temple will ..."

Shaw - "Temple son.  You're under arrest."

Strophius stares at Orestes, the bike's owner crosses his arms nodding with a smile, Orestes takes a bite with a sneer.

...

Spits.

Orestes - "There really are a lot of seeds in these."

Shaw raises a brow, draws and tranq's him, it all spins back to darkness.

~ He wakes in a cell, blurring back in from the darkness as the ghosts flee the blur ... Arsinoe, face bandaged, goggles and breather under the coat's hood.

Arsinoe - "I left you safe on the temple step.  So why are you here ?"

Orestes - "Arsinoe ?" ... he raises a brow at the mask and looking her over, "Looking for answers.  About the war.  So what's with your fucking face ?  Were you ... hurt ?"

She cocks her head a bit.

...

Arsinoe - "No !  My face is still fucking awesome.  I don't want anyone to know what it looks like.  Obviously."

Orestes - Breaks out laughing, "I've missed you."

Arsinoe - Laughing with, "You too.  And the breather analyzes the particles around me instead of me breathing them.  Tncluding those from your clothes.  It tells me where you've been.

Orestes - "So where have I been."

Arsinoe - "The temple.  And I meant, why are you ..."  She punches the bars hard, "Here."

...

Orestes - "There was a girl."

Arsinoe - "I'm glad she's not me Orestes.  I really am."

Orestes - A sigh and a hung head ... "It was a trap."

Arsinoe - "Doesn't need to be a trap to be deadly.  Maybe temptation's always a trap.  Then maybe the trap is in you, temple son.  But we've got a fight ahead.  And you're distracted."

The vendor's ledger slams down in front of the bars.  He pulls it through and opens it, the list from the merchant tabbed inside with a map, names, places.  More similar pages of different kinds and ages.

Orestes - "What ... fight ?  It's over."  Paging through ... "These places ..." paging ... "They all surround ..."

Arsinoe - As the view examines the pages, maps drawn, an unknown system.  "For love, Orestes.  We fight for love.  And that's all."

He looks up to no one there then clanging slide sound from the outer barrier doors.  The Dwarvenkind guards enter with Strophius, Arsinoe gone.

Strophius - Annoyed ... "Why are you here ?"

Orestes - Passing the book through, "For this."

The night time celebrations begin.

('Somos Sur' by Ana Tijoux with Shadia Mansour)

Amid the parades and spinning celebrants, outside the guard station.

(music lowers)

Strophius - Holding the book, to Orestes, "It's to me you owe that money, the temple will not be told, all agreed and not cheaply.  These days we know neither if to blame you or your ship anyway and I'd rather forget you both until you've been debriefed.  On Nibiru."

Looking through the book then closing again.

Strophius - "But this ..."

...

Strophius - "It is Nibiru business, is it not ?"

Orestes - "It is."

Strophius - Pages ... looks up as though a sound, "What's that ?"  Stares as though Orestes had said something.  "Use your ship's holo-mapping systems ... ?  Why thank you !  I shall."  Slams the ledger.  "And you ..."

Orestes - "... do you know them ?"

Strophius - "The Gaeani ?  You know I've known them well."

Orestes - "The Brotherhood."

...

Strophius - "I know them exactly as well as you do, temple son."  A stare before he turns away.

...

Selene - From the rooftop, "Hey."  She drops a piece of fruit to him, he catches.  "I do like holy sometimes."  She takes a bite.

Orestes - Looks at the fruit, then bites.  Chewing, he looks at her, "How's your dad feel about that ?"

Selene - Giggles, "He hates it.  He calls me 'the betrayer'."  She rolls over and looks at the sky.  "Almost as much as he says my name.  But he loves me too much to kill me."

...

Orestes - "Selene is dead.  She died in the war, among the last."

Selene - "Mm-hm."  She bites and rolls back over, grins.  "And what about you ?  Are you dead too ?"

Orestes - Laughs, "Not particularly, no."

... food ...

Selene - "Just a body they come and go.  So don't get too used to it."  She looks him over in a brief moment most of curiosity, like looking at new photo found. "Sorry about your face.  Kind of."  She grins upside down over the edge, mouth full.  "I fixed it.  You were sleeping."

Orestes - "I know.  I can feel you still."  He touches his forehead, "Right here.  That's a healer's trait you know."  Smiles sarcastically before a brief choke on a seed.  Recovering, "It's very Yin.  Very 'holy'."

Selene - Laughs rolling back to her stomach, "Have you ever even been with a real healer ?"

...

Selene - A bite.  "Manipulation of the flesh.  There is nothing darker."  She stares a moment, analyzing him.  Smiles chewing, then serious.  "Soon."

With a deep and quiet boom, she leaps arcing to the sky, a flip to the near woods, a breeze left behind.  He stares after, lost.

...

Shaw - Standing in the alley's shadow, "They toy with you, temple son.  Can't see how that's going to be a good thing.  For anyone.  Now that they know you so well."  He turns away.

Orestes - "Orestes."

Shaw stops.

Orestes - "My name is Orestes."

Shaw - "Is it now ?"  Continues on his way.

Orestes stands stilled, then annoyed.  Takes a bite, spits and turns to the crowd, tossing the core.

~ In the wood, Brotherhood roar to the moon as the forges are lit.

(music back up)

The music picks up with the passing celebration, he follows a flow and into an open front pub, deeply alcoved inside, a crowd flows in, bumping through those exiting.

A group from the Brotherhood drinks, telling tales of war, no trouble caused, an occasional deep laughter.  They see him and go quietly looking, more curious than anything.

One smiles in recognition and sets down his glass.  Tears off a sleeve showing a long blade wound.  His smile grows and he points.  Then flexes and stretches his fingers to show it's healed.  Holds up his glass and drinks.

Orestes recognizes after a moment and lifts his shirts side, showing a heavy scar where a blade glanced hard off a rib.  Thumps it and smiles, drops the shirt back down, nodding appreciation for the battle.

The warlord smiles back glass high and drinks, their tales continue.

Orestes looks suddenly to the corner.

Arsinoe - Sitting there, "You've got friends."

Orestes - "Yeah ... thought I smelled you there.  Didn't even need a mask."

Arsinoe - "My mask is awesome.  So do you understand what's happening yet ?"

Orestes - "Concerning them or concerning you ?"

The other table laughs as the tale teller gestures a ship battle.

Arsinoe - "Concerning You.  Do you understand ?"

Drinks are brought to the other table, they thank nodding and a toast to the wait, drinks the tales returned to, laughter.

Orestes - Nodding to the glancing brotherhood, "And what of them ?"

Arsinoe - "They come and go like everyone else.  Just like you."

Orestes - "And you ?  Will you return with me ?  This can't be ..."

Arsinoe - "Why would you even ask me that ?  To either temple or torment, you think every path has to go ?"  She drinks.  "No.  Every path for you leads to you.  And for me, to me.  Always."

...

Orestes - "You know what they'll bring.  The terror and destruction.  We fought them.  Desperately.  We lost so many.  Too many."

Arsinoe - "And they lost the war.  And so much more.  Balance.  They are balance."  Thought ... "Once even our old home was forested."

Orestes - "So I've heard."

Arsinoe - Leaning in, "Yes.  And such terrifying beasts it had ..." distracted, "... ah-ha !"

She spots Qetzo entering.

Arsinoe - "Finally !"  And to Orestes, "He can explain it better.  It's very simple, when simply put.  He's like that."

Qetzo - "Arsinoe ..."  He smiles.  "I heard about the mercenaries.  Jealous."

Arsinoe - "Welcome always.  But this one does not understand why in one place the Yang rises in Yin, while in another, it's Yin found only in Yang."

Qetzo - "Ah.  The Brotherhood."

The brotherhood from the other table all glance a moment, then return to their tales.

Qetzo - "Hm."  A laugh.  "When you kill one beast in the wood, another will rise.  Balance.  Those who serve death so directly are most calm in lands with living predators."

Arsinoe - "Beasts in the wood."

Qetzo - "Yes.  It's simple.  They have a place among them here.  But on your home world, your land is dead.  No predators.  So there they become the missing beast that land craves."

Arsinoe - "And peaceful temple becomes the prey."

Qetzo - "Yes ... the 'bountiful herd'.  You see ?"

Arsinoe - "But here ..."

Scars, smiles on closeup, warrior eyes at peace.

Orestes - Stares ... "That's not what we fought.  We fought horror in the fields.  Merciless destruction of ..."

Arsinoe and Qetzo stare back.

Qetzo - "They make no trouble here.  You talk trouble here.  You."

Arsinoe - "They've done nothing which any beast in these woods wouldn't."

Qetzo - "Heard her father paid that bill too.  He was ..."  Holding laughter, "... 'displeased'."

Laughter from the other table not watching them, their own.

...

Qetzo - Stares at Orestes a moment becoming serious.  "The war is over, monk."

...

Orestes - ... "I can see it." ... "I'm looking for war."  Drinks arrive.

He looks to the other table.  The one nods back, thumps his chest and raises fist, followed by the others.  He nods in appreciation watching them return to tale.

~ Blades are pounded at the brotherhood forge.

Arsinoe - Voiced over, "And you'll have it, I'm sure."

________

chorus

________

Orestes wakes in the too early dawn, breathing hard, nightmare.

('Hey Sinkiller' by Big Black)

He pulls on clothes fast. lain around a rented market room.  Heads out walking to the lake beach front.  Birds pecking near a large stone, he approaches, disturbing them to flight.  He sits on the stone in the dawn, staring ... lost in thoughts.  Attempted meditation, frustration, flashes of war.

From over the trees behind him, far away, the babble of birds goes point to point across the treetops, eyes following the sounds, Orestes wincing against memory in flashes.

__

The asteroids crater alive with forge works, made from the materials around, drop pod cones for vats.  A wooden dowel is dipped into the molten stainless.

~ Fluttering birds, the following eye.

The coated dowel swirls into the mixture as the carbon is added the top, mixed with the rod but not to dissolution.  Pulling up and down into the mix as it turns, swirling the rod between the hands.

~ The birds.

The dowel is pulled, then thrust into the cooling fluid, steaming dry.  Hit with a fast torch over the length by another worker, the dowel spun between the hands of the first, then dipped again into the vat.

~ The birds flutter until directly beneath, then fading past to other flocks in the distance behind.  The eyes look up over the trees focusing into the distance, Orestes on the stone, his back turned.

The view takes flight in a whipping spin, bobbing in flaps.

~ Still distracted, flashes of war, the brotherhood in the bar, the man's face.

The forge process repeated.

Two other smaller birds rise up from the treetops for the prey, the phoenix smacks one back down with a wing and spin dives the other down, rising again.

~ The man's face laughing in the pub.

Process repeated.

The phoenix glides back to it's run.

~ The man's face in battle, like a raging monster.

The rod is pulled out of the vat to angle and held there, the worker bobbing it a bit to encourage, allowing a hanging drip.  Drop cooled horizontally in a flat pool basin.  Torched, then a vertical drop back into the vat.

The phoenix adjusts for a gust.

~ The man in battle, cutting him through the side grinning close.

The phoenix stabilizes the glide to target.

First process repeated.

The sound of a blade drawn slowly, he thinks of Selene.

The phoenix slaps it's wind to it's side for a thrust to gravity dive.

Second process repeated.

~ They embrace in his mind she leans to whisper in his ear.

The man from the pub flips his forge mask and examines the raw blade.

~ He hears her voice, whispered but loud with a gathering storm in the sky, "Behind you."

He rolls backward off the rock as the Phoenix glides over missing, skidding to the beach in a turn and mercilessly spinning to attack.

Orestes draws his bladed pistols firing, forced back by the Phoenix's spinning lashes with it's wings.  The bullets get lost in tuft or simply pass though feathered wing.

It keeps it's back to the sun, bobbing it's head side to side, flashing it in Orestes eyes.  A shot pings off the beak near the soft of the eye and it backs off with a hiss, flapping to rise, it circles in the air, examining while Orestes reloads.

A sudden flipped thrust from the Phoenix before the process complete, Orestes dodges the beak, the wing extends long to catch him, knocking him to his back and spinning the bird into a hard slap over his sternum.

Arched and clutching, rib broken and hard breathing, he pulls the sword.  A clawed talon slams him down hard.  It stabs to his head with the beak, he tries to slam it down the throat, the bird turn beak-side to grind it off before another thrust.

It pulls it's head back with a hiss, gripping hard with the claw watching Orestes scream with wide eye reflecting.  He hears her.

"Can you feel me ?"

Nearly cognizant of the moment the Phoenix cocks his head to listen, examining, squeezing.  He hears a giggle.

Spoken aloud, "Because I'm right the fuck behind you."

The Phoenix turns, sun in it's eyes half eclipsed by Selene.  She shrieks filling with lightning and lashes with her cloak sleeves at the bird like a dark ghost-whip entangling it.  Shrieks to the sk as lightning strikes engulfs it, grounding through twitching Orestes.

It roars to the sky before she lets up.  Stumbling and trying to drag Orestes with, barely with struggle, she hits it upside the head with a rock.

It turns annoyed glare.

Lightning strikes it from the sky with her wails.

It flops over kicking Orestes aside, tripping over stone and into flight with a retreating roar, she screams whipping it out of the sky.  She turns to Orestes as it flops away, then to the air.  The two other birds leap to its back dragging it through the distant treetops.

She sits down and lifts Orestes head into her lap, smiles and strokes his hair.

Selene - Giggles at the sunrise as his view up to her blurs to shadow, the view his, wobbling as she adjusts her comfort sitting.  She looks down, "That was really funny."  As it goes black ... "Oh Shit !"  Darkness, sound blurs with an exhale, the rattle.

Static sound from her bot.

! INTERMISSION !

(six minute, pre-advertised)

~ four

(after intermission, in the dark)

Selene - Voiced in dark, "Wake up."  The sound of thumps on the chest.  Lightning sparks light the screen, then dark.  More thumping ... "No ... I just found you ..."

('Purple' by Skin)

The screen lights with her pulling a deep purple light from her heart painfully, breathing hard, kneeling over the lifeless Orestes.

The view goes wide and across with a gust of wind, over the woods, the babbling birds settling, the greaters lowering their heads back to the treetops.  Among the Arsinoe watches, lowering her head in the treetop to tool her rifle.

Past the woods along a fleeing flock from a twisting young Phoenix, snapping it's beak through like a shark passing a school of fish parallel to a caravan walking, mixed with herd.

~ Strophius drops his pen grabbing his chest.

Selene thrusts the light hard into the Orestes' chest, he inhales with wide eyes.

~ Lightning strikes near the war camp, a Thunderbird flies over with a roar, Charon and Styx look to each other.  She nods and rises.

They hold tight for life into a kiss, the glow between them.

~ Lady Styx exits the wood with the Hecate.

('Bolero' (again) by Maurice Ravel)

Song again, while Selene walks eating fruit the opposite way he walked before, while behind her bot drags Orestes passed out on a cot.  An occasional stumble as she walks.  She looks at the fruit in her hand as though remembering it and takes a bite.

________

Inside the Decibel, a loud thump echoes three times.  Strophius sits with the ledger before the holo-mapper, giving the auto-pilot a look for threatening him with an over-sized syringe.  He looks to the door.

Strophius - Annoyed, he turns off the map.  "Auto-pilot, see who it is."

...

Auto - "I hate you."

____

The entry plank drops, the Hecate wait with Styx.

Styx - "Oh hello !  The 'war hero' ... new arm there I see.  And a new head."

Auto - "A full new plate, in fact.  Forged from the hull of your own queen's flagship as a trophy.  I learned how.  I'm like you now."

He makes a whistle sound, gesturing the ship crashing.  Arms wide with explosion sounds along the way (sounds badly recorded from the actual event) ... watching the imagines scene like a television.  Final boom, his entire upper body flailing.

Auto - Looks at her pausing the show, "This is the part when we flew away."  Hand flying away, watching, with rocket sounds.  "Woo-hoo !"... he back looks at her.  "We flew through the fireball.  It was triumphant.  Do you sell encyclopedias now ?  I require them."

...

Styx - "So hard to kill and yet so hard not to.  No.  My daughter.  Have you seen her ?"

Auto - "Who ?"  He squirts the syringe.

Strophius - Stepping in, "Ah.  Lady Styx."  Auto flies into a closet door slamming, crimping around the wires.  "On my own honor, we have not seen her ... but I believe we have exactly the same concern as you and Lord Charon."

Styx - "Do you."  She looks around entering, Hecate guarding outside, strangely still.  She looks more for detail, already aware Selene isn't there, noting the ledger.

Strophius - "Yes.  In fact.  And we both know how volatile the situation can be."

Styx - A laugh dragging a finger over the holo controls lazily.  "We like volatile.  You fear it.  That's the concern, edifice."

Auto - From the closet, "Ha !  She called you an edifice.  That means you're an old ..."

Strophius - Spins the gunblade from his shoulder and stabs though the closet door.  Spark sounds as the weapon spins back.  "Indeed a traditionalist.  But I do respect treaty, so long as it can last."

Styx - "And we both know they'll care nothing for it."

Strophius - "Do you ?"

She smiles as they look to the static sounds of protest and sparks from the closet.

Styx - Smile carried back to, "Not a bit."  She turns down the ramp, looking around at the surroundings in honest appreciation. "But I do like this planet."  She looks back over her shoulder, "As it is."

The ramp's hydraulics freeze over in her wake.  The Hecate hiss as the ramp slams shut behind her, shattering the hydraulics.

...

Strophius - "Auto-pilot.  Do you have their location ?"

Auto - From the closet, "I don't know."

Strophius - "But he can make comm still, yes ?"

Auto - "It's likely."

...

Strophius - "I'm taking my ship back to Nibiru, to present this new evidence to the court.  Meantime ... up to orbit with you, to keep an eye."

Auto - "No thank you."

...

Strophius - "Over-ride code 'Templeton Strope.  Oh one, oh oh, oh ... X'."

Auto - "That code's been overwritten.  The new code is ... 'please'."

...

Strophius - "Oh ... please."
__

The two ships lift off from the market landing in the rising sun.

Auto - Voiced over the launch, "Oh Kay !"

~ The caravan in waking, a flock of birds flutter away as the long necks announce the sun to the skies, the ship departing parting.  They move to slow action, continuing the path, walker panels opening here and there, morning smoke fresh from the pipework flues.

________

Strophius emerges from from the landing smoke on Nibiru, enters the main structure.  Guards stand aside recognizing as he walks directly, until he kneels before the throne.

Strophius - "Lord Kronu."

...

Kronus - Smiles, "Strope ... " A moment to recall ... "Temple teacher.  War tactics and the gunblade ... very wise, it is known.  Speak, of course."

Strophius - "The brotherhood on Gaea.  They gather arms.  And they as well hire mercenaries from the regions surrounding our home planet, but none from it.  Conspicuously."  He moves to hand the ledger over and sees it ignored.

Kronus - "Strope.  Matters why ?  They eat."

A child lord circles.

Strophius - Bows briefly, "Lord Zeu."

Kronus - "He studies soon under you I think, yes ?", he turns to him.

Zeus - "Yes it's true.  In the next greater season."

Kronus - To Strophius, "They say you teach more wisdom than cut, but that those cuts run deeper, when the students learn from you.  A fine mastery."

Strophius - Distracted by a shifting shadow.  "... If I may ask my lord, what is the official stance on ghosts ?"

...

Kronus - "Ghosts ?  ...  You mean as ritual to appease ?  Or do you mean as a new tale to frighten my Zeu to bed.  But if you could possibly mean the law ..."

Strophius - Looks to Zeus, eyes caught, then back, watching behind the throne.  "No my lord.  I refer to shadows behind thrones."  Turns away, Kronus leans back as shadows wisp away.

The motion caught by Zeus, he turns to watch Strophius leave.

The view turns to black mist, the Hecate standing behind the throne whispering to thinking Kronus.  As they turn, the room dissipates to the woods near Charon's chair.  The lead leans in to whisper, he leans in to hear, then smiles.

~ five

~ the Decibel drifts over Gaea ~

Mixing batter for more cookies, Auto freezes as the ship echoes a deep thump from impact, setting it to drift.

Comm - "Temple ship 'Decibel'.  This is the Tartari ship 'Revenge'.  We know who you are, robot.  And with no life signs present we see ... all alone.  ...  What are you doing ?"

...

Auto - "... sneaking ... ?"

...

Comm - "Understood.  For Clytemnestra's flagship.  For her.  And for our home.  Prepare."

...

Auto - "Okay."  

________

____

The Decibel begins exuding a gas from its surface, as particle shields.  Similar to countermeasures but ongoing, causing detonation before impact while the cloud's refractive particles disperse beams.  

 

Electromagnetically close to the surface, but does leave a comet's trail depending on velocity.  On porting in, the refracting particles are singed in to black smoke filling in by the refracting beneath.

 

When struck, the field compensates around the detonation the counter-magnetism, pushing the ship away according to strength of impact.  As it's burned through the effect is lesser and lesser until gone.

 

Depends on how much particle the emitters are holding, and the ship's ability to maintain the electromagnetic field that holds them.

____

The Revenge's hull is a layers steel of the same sort as the rest of their technology, that taken from these asteroids and the planet it once was.  Iron an nickel, stainless steel singed with time and port, but these stealth cruisers are different, matte black and silent running.

The engines deep withing their hull to conceal their light and vented throughout the cooled hull to leave no heat.  The outer surface is layers of mesh forged over hard bulkhead, then mesh, then metal.  

 

Nearly impossible to break or blast through, these ships have no shields, while the outer mesh dissuades sensors or sight in space, but any high velocity entry into atmosphere becomes more conspicuous.
____

________

 

('Laydown' by Prince and the NPG)

 

Commander - Watching Decibel launch a homing barrage from their bridge view-port, "I really do hate that robot.  Let's kill him.  Finally."

(The bridge shakes with the missile hits)

Bridge agrees.

~ Inside the Decibel, an excess of processing servers begin a progressive hum, drives slightly shaking (like four clothes dryers drying bowling balls, rattling around the back-room).

Data officer - "Sir !"

Decibel glides to speed, jumping away just before the Revenge's bridge, cracking the fore view-port in hard decompression.  Along one gunwale, cannons flip out from opening hull panels, then back along the other, all seeking target (they seem used to his strategy).

~ Auto stirs the batter and checks recipe, a spark from the cable at the back of his head, following it to the rattling processors, a completely different planet out the view-ports with weird glowey jellyfish giants around it.  The planet unfurls into a beast to eat one as the rest scatter.

 
The Decibel arcs out of jump circling for 'Revenge', all quiet.

~ Auto stops stirring ...

Inside The Revenge, the captain and second watch Decibel's seeking drift.  The room dark, crew in goggles, watching, consoles dark.  He whispers to the second, the second turning away.

~ Auto starts stirring again slowly, eyes side to side ... the sensor console runs through flashes of sensor read protocols.

Feet fox walking quickly but quietly ... the second enters the gunnery chamber and pulls a comm tube from the wall.  He exhales ... thumbs the switch.

~ Auto stops stirring, processors rattling ...

Second - Quickly into comm, "Fore twenty-one starboard up sixteen, fire."

~ Fast to the empty cockpit, the jump console runs the final numbers on screen, the stars streak.

Cannons flip at the fore and open on coordinates, correcting by sight-line, before it jump crashes them again at the fore, cannons facing knocked off into the nearing atmosphere.

It immediately exits jump at the aft, the gravitational vacuum dragging Revenge's tail.

~ He adds chocolate chips.

The Decibel spirals out from behind it, crossing the cannon fire in while warming another approach.  Then directly to the aft and out the fore, dragging Revenge toward the upper atmosphere.

From the Revenge view port, turning to atmosphere as the auto-pilot deploys a blind of countermeasures against the lining cannon-fire before a hard zero degree burn to the planet, diving below view.

Captain - "Forgive the stealth protocols.  We go full burn.  ...  I may miss him."

~ Auto applies the cookie cutters (dinosaur shapes).

Inside Revenge, the roar of engines and twisting hull as replacement cannons are moved to replacement on the closed gunwale panels.  Through the center of the work, valve workers furiously control intake and output overloads around the central horizontal core, outputs to the hull.
________

At a makeshift camp in a grown part of the woods, undamaged, Orestes with Selene tending.  Her bot alarms an approach, she spins into assault, the man from the pub.

Brotherhood - "Temple son."

Orestes - ... "Orestes."

Brotherhood - "Yes.  I've heard.  We wanted to know."  Eyes in the woods ... "What do they tell you ?  About our lost planet.  Whose pieces we mine.  What do they say."  He stares, maintaining control through adrenaline.

Orestes - "That it was your home.  That you drilled too deep."

Brotherhood - "Drilled too deep."

Orestes - "And now you ... mine the pieces ... to make weapons."

Brotherhood - Eyes sharp and piercing in stare, a madness in a short smile, "Weapons, yeah."

Motion in the woods.

...

Orestes - "That's ... what they say."

The newly forged gunblade sticks in the ground at his feet.

Brotherhood - "They lied to you, temple.  We'd wondered.  All of us, we'd wondered ... if it was true."

Others behind him, gathering, looking on with the same look.

Brotherhood - "That they just ... lied to you all and ... you all believed them.  It's what our Queen says."  He looks over shoulder to his brothers and sisters, then back.  "And our war leader but we're not acolytes.  We're a people."

He looks around, then back.

Brother - "And ... "  A tear from an eye, "... we'd wondered if so ... grand a lie could truly be told and then be ... believed by so many ... but ... so there it is."

He strains a smile and puts a hand on his shoulder, near twitch.

Brotherhood - "You didn't know yesterday what you do now today.  But you know it now tomorrow.  Temple son.  Tomorrow you do.  And then we all act according to our natures."

He looks at the new gunblade.

Brotherhood - "A fine weapon."  He turns to rejoin the rest.  "A fine death.  We join the battle on whichever side we enter it.  Orestes of the Temple.  My name is Aries."

...

Orestes - Looks to Selene, "Strophius."

She glares.
________

Outside Revenge, the close skin of the hull, the ionization building in the mesh, it's engines in atmosphere now roaring at every turn.  The nose dives slowly toward view of The Decibel before it slow spins off, returning fire to individual cannon as it fires (detected) then toward.  Another jump across the bow.

Fire pulled from the bow as The Revenge's entry is sidelined.

~ He puts the cookies in the oven.  From inside through the oven window, his eyes watch them ...

Inside Revenge the hull crunches inward, made to take it but sending orders and crew at the sound of a tiny depressurization squeal and a gun-port.  A heavy ! Whump ! sound and the gun-port is removed.

Fire engulfed as the section is pulled into atmosphere, cannon closing to pod, the nearby crew sucked out from the deck.  The Decibel seen twisting away through the port.  The bulkhead seals with sliding door, alarms and steam.

On Revenge bridge, the captain moves to the chair while the view-port closes, engulfed and blinding to darkness.

________

Selene - Watching Orestes gear painfully, "Orestes no ... please.  We're free now.  Don't you understand ?  It all just right ..."

Orestes - "No.  It's not.  I can't let him fight alone."

Selene - "Yes ... you can.  I ... I ... fixed you."

...

Orestes - "I'm sorry.  I'll find you."

Departs ...

She looks to the bot.  Static sound.
________

A view across the Revenge bow in full burn, mesh shell flapping it through to maintain, a series of thin spikes emerge from the fore.

__

As the spike sensors engage, stations read their interpretations, strapping in.  A view pops on main over the view-port, data processed and updated from the stations.  The captain takes the controls on either armrest.

He grins while the rough view dips shaking again to Decibel, cannon fire surrounding it's twisting path.
__

The burning stern of the Revenge, fore guns crossing Decibel's slow swooping dive downward, barely seen, inside the captain correcting by screen view tracking over rough video.

He looks close as turbulence jostles Decibel, Revenge gaining.
__

~  Auto watches the cookies rise ...
__

To Decibel cockpit, view out the port while the drives run the numbers, Revenge in view, he's flying in reverse.

Revenge captain - Eyes go wide, grabbing the arms of the chair, "! BRACE !"

A head on jump, crumpling the fore bridge and blowing the set stations.  The remaining stations pull hard back on their tracks and into the second bulkhead set over the roaring engine.

The bulkhead starts to close with the survivors working in as the view port is pulled out in flame, Decibel seen veering away to horizontal, the last survivors pulled tumbling through.

The captain watches the veer on side console monitor set in the chair, then swivels it over his lap.  He checks recovering crew and takes a count, returns to console.

Captain - "Make the jump on my mark."

~ The Auto-pilot pulls out the cookies ... looks to the side ...

Captain - "Now."

Decibel jumps to Revenge as Revenge jumps to Decibel's return vector slamming it from above.

~ Auto tries desperately to catch all the airborne cookies ...

Decibel jumps away, pulling Revenge fore and returns to the aft dragging it horizontal.

~ Server backups rattle hard ...

Crewmen grip tightly around and hanging off the jump console, they all look up to the captain looking over his shoulder.

First - "Got it."

Captain - Glances to the side wall with mounted Auto heads and smiles. "This time ... let's try water this time."

Another jump tussle and the Revenge slams Decibel into the lake, seen over the stone Orestes sat upon, watched by the phoenix as it picks apart bones.

She bangs the skull of another human on the stone to crack it, a settling silence at the shore.  She looks up, eyes to small bird flock departing and takes flight with it clamped, away toward nest.

Across the quiet water ...

('Peach' by Prince and the NPG with Mayte Garcia)

...

...

The Revenge and Decibel splash high out of water facing.  Top panels flip on both, Auto with under-arm cannon and warlords with rifles.  Immediately opening on each other, port lids as cover.

Inside Decibel, arms from the walls extend to repair, crawling drones dragging wire head for cannon works, others for shield.

Inside Revenge, they move hull-pounders into place to repair it from inside, a team moving a plate for the blasted port.  They struggle against incoming blasts before setting it, followed by weld team with a floor brace.
____

Selene rides her bot toward the distant wood, Orestes ahead.
____

Atop the decks the exchange continues.

The repair drones inside Decibel at jump at cannon control amid sparks.  The firefight continuing top deck, Auto-pilot ducks a barrage and tosses a grenade.  He checks cannon charge and heat, drops it into the port.

Looking down, drones huddle at ladder's bottom holding up weapons.

Auto - "It's true I do like them all."

He grabs a chain-gun and concussion cannon, the two drones carrying skitter to work on the shield generator.

Auto - Pops back out, "Destroyers of Cookies !"  Fires madly.
____

Orestes runs, passed by Selene riding by, he tries to run faster and stops holding his chest, then jogs.
____

The captain of the Revenge walks the deck checking repair along the engine's pressure tubes, steam being patched and valved.  Along to main external valve to assist the crewman.

Captain - "How long until we can flush the vents ?"

Engineer - "Less than five.  Cannon ?"

Captain - Holding a plate while the engineer welds.  "Less than two."

Engineer - "Well alright then.  I'll warn the teams."  He bolts through the final setting.  Yells out, "Need pressure check on this valve."  To the captain, "I'll check the rest.  Kill that bastard."  He storms off.  "Need Pressure Team Valve Eight Today !"
____

Orestes painfully attempts a 'brisk upright' run.
____

A concussive blast strikes across Revenge's fore-deck sending crew in the air.  A fore cannon flips ready.

The Decibel's shields come online with a flicker, it fore cannon on swivel check before fire exchanged, knocking out Revenge's cannon.  The Auto-pilot sprays the water between to dissuade a swimming team approaching before they dive.
____

Selene rides through the lumbering herd.
____

The Revenge's top engine valves flutter above the water before spouting the excess and echoing the fire within.  The ship drifts circling in full fire exchange as Decibel works to take out Revenge's side cannons, keeping fore shields at high charge.

A mortar from Revenge deck hits it's aft, sparking across the weaker shield.  Auto throws the mortar team back with the concussive rounds and drops the empty chain-gun into the port.

~ Drones hold up more weapons, Auto grabs a launcher and works the Revenge gunwale with the concussive and cannons with the launcher, rockets passed up while the fore cannon blasts.  Revenge continues focused fire against the shields over cockpit.
____

Orestes breathes hard, keeping a steady pace.

Cuauhtémoc watches with curiosity through his rifle scope, a laugh.
____

A sputter in the water beneath the Revenge aft, the along the gunwales.  Decibel starts to rise, the exchange in full continued, joined by Revenge.
____

Selene rides disappearing into the woods, past the crushed launch-bike.
____

Revenge closes, Decibel warms the drive.

The captain pops from the port angrily drawing his pistol, a pause and a shot, Auto's head pops off and the cable's shot through by a second.  His body flopping into the port, the hatch slams after.  Decibel jumps as the deck crew dives, Revenge is slammed back to the water.

Silence ...

Ports open, crew looks around and from the water ... one by one they start a quiet laugh before they all join loudly and cheers though-out the ship.  The captain swims for the bobbing head.