(drafted and backed Dec 2020 Jan 2021 (Hell)
Aedera - (voiced over) "It wasn't always like this ..."
~ 2006 ~
Some
guy outside Sanctuary's gate where his massive army stands, decorous if
not pompous. - "To open these gates to this stolen land ... and
to claim it rightfully ours ! We demand entry, or to face the One !
True ! God of WAR !" The massive army cheers for it, skies filling with beasts and delights.
...
No response ... he looks around ...
"But that wasn't my role."
In
the tree, Lucretia (in her current form ~ viney with another who looks much
as she previously did ('Glitch'), peering over the pool projection they
laugh ...
Glitch - "What's he going to do ?"
Lucretia - "He says to ignore them completely for three days, and then he's wiping them out personally."
...
They burst out laughing again, the Uncountably Large Army in the background ~ "Hoo-hoo-Hooah !"
Echoes
off as six ships in space part from another in space, the compass
points, plus above and below, scan beams activating at their fores.
Each unique,
some nearly biological, all refitted alike.
A
dimly lit bridge, dull hued controls at stations, a captain's chair
with
flight wheel and control set before it. The overall technology is
heavy, toggled switches and hard levers operating recognizable
components and physical responses. To her left and in front, a sphere
for a standing navigator very similar to One's on the Nautilus.
To the right a gunner seated in a gunnery set
into a similar sphere. Each has two assistants, constantly chattering
softly into their comms, their sound forgotten with that of the engine.
Navigator - "Six arrival times synced ... three days."
At
the Navigator's globe approximations
of the seeker fleet display location, marked to their arrival at
locations highlighted as six compass points, though the proximities of
each, vague. A sigh, a hesitated hand.
...
Aedera - "Navigator. Something on the mind ?"
Navigator - "We can't be the first to think of using these aberrations this way."
Aedera
- "And we need them nonetheless. A tear in space is a rare point in
the universe which do not move. They are the only true meter of relativity we will ever find. And
so we will meet whomever thinks like we do."
...
Navigator - "Freely speaking ?"
...
Aedera - Places her pistol on the armrest, "If one speaks it respectfully, enlighten us."
...
Navigator
- "Hm." A smile, "Well I smell battle." He returns gaze to the globe, turning his back. "And you're no warrior ... while death comes here and there, for any care in the world. But these crew."
His team glaces at another ...
Gunner - "I might be one." His team turns to the navigator ready.
Navigator - "I've heard. But I haven't seen."
Aedera and the Gunner stare ...
Gunner - "What do we know of this navigator."
The navigator raises a brow ...
Aedera - "Only that he can be easily replaced."
The navigator's team glances again, one smiles.
The navigator looks up smiling to Aedera.
Aedera
- A short smile back with a gaze, "But he is among the best we could
find for this foolishness and so we tolerate him, until he fails us."
Navigator
- "Never heard of it. Asteroid field approaching and the gravity pools do not match the mass ratios. We're not alone. So
gunner up buttercup. Stations."
Aedera - "And only five minutes in. Drinks ?"
...
The bridge turns as her bottle smashes across the view-screen.
Voiced over - "I was a librarian."
~ Encompass ~
('The Universe' by The Death Valley Girls)
(opening credits ~ i really want to use this video as is (credited)
________________________
~ 2016 ~
Timepiece
rides through an unknown city. Dim hues of brilliant colors, tall
buildings connected by sky-ways, denizens moving between load times.
Checking her wrist computer and a read from the front of the bike she
maps in an internet node, a central server for specialized traffic.
Her eyes blink through, her view of the city breaking down to wire-form, showing avatars.
Timepiece - "Lucretia, I need into the telephone networks. He's on the move and we need it's GPS."
Lucretia - "Do you think he's stupid enough ?"
Timepiece - "He's rich."
...
Both laugh ... "Bluetooth !"
Timepiece - "I'll be talking to his refrigerator by the time he walks in the door. Network set ?"
Lucretia
- Snickering, "Yeah. They call it a 'smart house'. Using a standard
package. I won't have much time to warn you before I boot you in, once a
computer starts talking to his phone, you jump. Be ready."
Timepiece
- Eyes flicker through, the city returning to it's norm leaving the
target locked and seen through. "Hm." She speeds off in the direction
of the avatar. "Did you catch that compass blip ?"
Lucretia
- "I think everyone must have ... I think ... hang on. I think ... it looks like it's from a lost seeker fleet ... like ten years ago ... but once they
hit their check-points, they were just ... gone. The next teams we sent
found nothing, set up shop and quiet ever since."
...
Timepiece
- Checks her comp, history, distance traveled from the length of time
missing, files of the missing, presumed dead. "Lucretia. I think they
just kept on going."
...
Lucretia
- "That's what they say, but this ... signal's fucking dated as hell. Pong-comm. I can't differentiate which
ship this was but it's not coming from the tears or anywhere near them, just pinging off their beacons, and it shouldn't have this pattern."
...
Timepiece
- Looks up the presumed location, signal pulses from crossing stars and
planetoids, matching a signal ... pinging through the compass beacons. "Hm." The same one after the next
from the tears in space, their last known transmission in the file.
"Lucretia. I think ..."
Lucretia
- "They did. This is all six signals sent from the same location ... you're
jumping."
Timepiece - Pops riding through a tubular network among many other signals as pulses. "Are we in ?"
Lucretia
- "Fucker's already adjusting the temperature. Welcome home.
As for the signal ... location verified. Coming as a pulse like
you said. The signal's held clean open tone but crossing bodies. It
could be chained to the beacons for distance ..."
... a sigh ...
Lucretia
- "Yep ! Like we can just ignore it ! ... One thing at a time.
Finish the
mission, set the nodes and come back when it's solid. I'll keep you
informed. We need time to let the data sift in for jump projects ... a
while. Once we have a predictable region map, you're up."
...
Lucretia - "Wanna fuck with the temperature while he's sleeping ?"
Timepiece
- "Absolutely. I'm in his voice companion now." Watching the map on
her wrist expand through the smart-house connections to the web. "And
... expanding the networks back out to the rest. We can come and go as
we please."
The map expand to networks across the real world, their trace glowing, out to the satellites, view past into space.
Lucretia - Voiced over the view out, "I think we just did."
________
As
they approach the asteroid belt, three other ships the same in their
locations, all scanning across, Aedera's approaches a floating wreck.
Approaching with a scan across it's bow as it drifts, 'The Revenge'.
Floating through the light, parts blown off, entire sections missing,
girders hanging without prize. Scan off.
Navigator - A note of concern, "Do you know of this ship ?"
The Revenge lights a spotlight across their own bow, ship's ~ 'Gargarean Rose'.
Revenge Captain - On comm, "Ghost ship. Your business."
Aedera
- Crew turning to her, "Exploration and fitted for war. We seek tears
in space as a compass for the motion of the universe. And to discover
if and who or what holds them already."
Revenge
- A laugh, followed by more behind. "Know
that everything you've just said is babble here. And so we know not
to fear you. Passage. And you will return to us with this ... 'data' ...
you seek on your honor for said ... 'passage'. But these ships ... whom do you represent ?"
...
Aedera - "We represent Sanctuary. And you are welcome there as well."
More wrecks similar to the Revenge settle slowly around the Rose.
...
Revenge - " 'Sanctuary'.
... We will guide you into landing. Prepare your craft for boarding
and search. And yourself for Lord Charon. He'll have questions I
think."
Aedera - "And I will have answers."
...
Revenge
- "So be it. Adjust the range of your arrogance to the
harmonics between these stones in the field. Remember it is constantly
in flux, or you'll be blind again. And welcome to Tartarus."
('The Story of Isaac' by Pain Teens)
She
observes the assistants work at the navigator's station with his
occasional bark to their fouls, until the screen reinitializes. Ahead
in similar ways to the networks formed in the web, moving structures form
between the asteroids, walkways between in motion, lengthened and
shortened as they pass, with full populace making use.
The
citizens are mostly naked, hidden barely if, by robes and scraps,
themselves occasionally seeming sentient, like the living furs of the
lost beasts of their once biosphere.
Templed
across the larger, the smaller stones as nodes connection bridges, some
sphered over smooth, transmitting. More and more ships surround the
Rose as it enters on approach for what appears a main temple, a large
landing before it, their ships landing with a turn for the Rose's
expected placement.
As
their scan-lights dim the view to normal on that central stone, with
distant objects fluttering in light through and away the same as their
frequency shifts from theirs. The dead trees seen more clearly in the
dimming away, hard rooted through the rock-bed, hey grow over with the filling in of these shards of lost biosphere.
The overall appears somewhere between a warrior's hall and a hunting lodge.
Walking
from that structure to greet, Lord Charon. From behind as it lands,
Lady Styx with the boarding party. Aedera exits the Rose with a guard
of the gunner, nav and engineering assistants, cargo ramp left open for
the Tartari.
Ghost
gear armor flickering over upon activation then unseen, her eyes adjust
to the changing asteroid bridges for where she looks, then with her
attention back to where she is.
Charon
- "The others fled us immediately. Wise. We let them run. Gaiani
rabbits do not nourish, all hunters do know. And so before to our
business, what is it that makes you special among them to be standing
here now before me, so proud."
Aedera
- Smiles shortly. Pulls a bottle from her satchel, yanks the cork and drinks. "Alcoholism. Post
traumatic stress. The intrinsically felt desire to die not only from
this world or that but from all of them entirely which is quickly and
unfortunately met by my own cold. Cruel. Stubbornness. Every time.
Among other things."
...
Charon
- Smiles, "And what is your drink there ? Our hall is your platter for
a taste of it warrior, and to welcome our own other similar delights. But
leave your crew behind. We do not know them."
Aedera
takes another long drink watching him before passing it, he watches her
as he drinks of it. She nods the guard off then as they turn back to
the ship, met by Lady Styx's
curious glare analyzing, the Hecate behind her, armor chunked off, death
beneath.
They toward the hall.