Der Angst
23-07-2006, 15:11
Iskander
Nicolai LeClerc - formerly known as MPC-125-C - looked vaguely annoyed at the stack of paper in front of him, obscuring Galadriël Tîwele - who was apparently doing interstellar small-talk with another version of herself, in a language he suspected to be arabic - from his view.
"... So?"
"Just a second, please. You're not the only case I'm presently occupied with. And no, not in the way you think."
"Of course..."
"Anyway..." Galadriël eventually moved the papers out of the way, looking rather casually at Nicolai. "Well. Familiar with an entity called 'Huntaer'?"
"Yes. I believe the Erisavenus did a few purchases from them, and relayed details to us?"
"Correct. Also, it appears to be one of the, if not the, largest producer of clone troopers like yourself - well, like what you've been, once - in existence. And it's presently, shall we say, experiencing trouble. External pressure, as well as a degree of internal issues, although we can't really quantify the latter. And, given that we haven't actually done all that much since the Kiss My Ass and Curious Cat started the program, well..."
"We've spare resources, a cause, and I'm supposed to blow up stuff?" Nicolai said, grinning.
Galadriël didn't. "Correct. Of course, Huntaer's a bit off - different galaxy, in fact - so your journey would take a little while, assuming that you do it. If you do, your job is recon and execution. Find suitable targets, and act either on your own, or inform us so we can bring in forces for quick hit&runs. Raiding facilities and shipments, the likes."
"Well..." Nicolai hesitated, not so much because he was uncertain, but because he thought that it made him look cool.
After all, Galadriël was rather good-looking, and unlike many of his comrades, Nicolai wasn't exclusively interested in the somewhat ambiguously masculine, well, for lack of a better term, 'Warrior Cults' which occasionally tended to involve lots of naked flesh and oil and other such things.
"Well what?"
Shit. Didn't work. "I'm in. Details?"
"Will be given to you by your ride. For now, it'll be the It's a Sin - further support in the form of actual warships and transports for, well, transportation duties will be provided when the time comes. They may be a good bit off, but the distance is manageable, if conditions in the Between are favourable.
"There's of course the possibily of extermination-scale warfare between Huntaer and other entities. Should you be caught in the crossfire... Well, my condolences."
"Why, thank you. I suppose that asking for a squadron to remove such threats would be too much?"
"Correct. Besides, the It's a Sin would be close by, and either have a backup of yourself, or safe your consciousness and run."
"You don't say. Well, anyway... When is my flight going?"
"In about a month' time. We'll have prepared some more details by then, and induced the changes to your present physiology that'll be required. You can also make yourself somewhat more familiar with the subject matter during transit - the ship will update you with whatever it happens to stumble across with its passives, too - and, well, that's it, for now. Oh, one more thing: You''ll not be the only operative. You'll be one of the military branch - there wont be many, a handful at most - and there'll be two more branches, dealing with economic and political matters. Occasional cooperation is likely, to further our goals."
"I take it that 'Acquiring chunks of economic and political power within the Huntaerian empire' is on the list, then?"
"Long term, yes."
"I see. Well... I'm going to have fun, I suppose."
"That you will."
"With you, too?"
"No."
Damnit. Frigid elf.
Departure
Nicolai looked back at the collection of smallish moons that had been his home for... Over half a year, now. He had never really realised just how flimsy it all was. Almost too easy to blow up (Well, it looked like it, anyway).
Flimsy, and oddly natural, there was almost nothing on the moons that'd betray the fact that they were inhabited, that they contained industry, training grounds, apocalyptic weaponry and his friends.
It was rather amusing, really. He'd spent quite a bit of time reading through assorted novels and watching films involving just this kind of situation. One of the recurring themes in all these works was that the hero, upon leaving his home and his friends, would often wonder if he'd return from his dangerous, maybe even suicidal mission. He'd probably be scared, or have his heroic moment (Before - in the better novels - reality would strike and turn him or her into a cynic, frustrated and aggressive cripple), deciding that he'd sacrifice himself for his friends, his home, his nation.
Not so Nicolai. He knew that he'd come back. Healthy and unscarred. Sure, it was possible that he - this version of him - would die. But there were backups of his mindstate, and bodies could be regrown, anyway. The worst that could happen to him was losing a part of his memories, from the moment of his last backup to the moment of his death.
But that really wasn't the same as really, inevitably, and permanently dying.
The effect of this was that war and violence had turned from a serious matter into a game. Do this, do that, try to be a good guy - and when you happen to to make a mistake, you respawn.
In a sense, it was acutely boring.
He was still thinking about all this when the It's a Sin engaged its shifting unit and the image changed from a few harmlessly enough looking moons to the chaotic colour-mixture of the Between.
Transit
The ship moved through the Between, slicing its path through the part of reality where relativity became an object to discuss.
It wasn't a very elegant ship - measuring six-hundred and twenty-two metres in length, six-hundred and two metres in width, and one-hundred and twenty-four metres in height, it was essentially a rather fat flying saucer - but it did its job.
It had a few (Relatively trusted to be secretive, although neither the ship nor Nicolai told them any details about the operation, anyway) inhabitants, too, all of which were constantly moaning and complaining about the ship's field-grip on their molecules - necessary, assuming that one didn't want to be turned into paste by the It's a Sin's acceleration, but still supremely uncomfortable.
After nine hours, the It's a Sin eventually reached its final velocity at rather a lot of millions of times the speed of light in relativistic space, general direction Huntaer. The fields relaxed, then dropped, and the moaning stopped, to be replaced with the usual routines.
Preparation
The ship's avatar was... Befitting its name, to say the least. Tight and flimsy pink-ness on fair - and rather young - skin. Nicolai shuddered at the sheer tastelessness of it all as they went through the alterations his body had received before and during transit, in order to fit the mission profile.
"Isn't it a bit risky?"
"What?"
"Well, the DNA-cocktail. It ought to be classified, no?"
"Ah, no," the It's a Sin's avatar chuckled. "Multiple layers of redundancies and encoding, and your body chemistry has been altered to actually interpret what we've programmed into your cells. I'd be surprised if they could decode it within a decade, and it'd take several to replicate it. Admittedly, your cancer-risk is 3000 times standard, due to the basepair-chaos, but hey. In any case..."
She went on to massage Nicolai, which was probably meant to relax him - in actuality, Nicolai was simply nervous. The discussion continued, mentioning muscle capacities (Now she was massaging his chest), the wavelengths his eyes could deal with, the limits of his optic nerves (Frederick was becoming even more nervous, as the It's a Sin was now even less covered than before. Admittedly, this also meant less pink, which was a good thing), the capabilities of the nanites inside his body, and how they were supposed to deconstruct when they left his body and came into contact with oxygen - they'd do it inside his bloodstream, too, of course, but in there, they'd also replicate, keeping numbers stable -, his organic-scale field-emission capabilities (No more pink, finally. Still, what he saw didn't exactly reassure Nicolai, regardless), his required diet to keep nanite-levels up and his muscles functioning, and so on...
Eventually, he excused himself, leaving the rather frustrated It's a Sin behind.
More Preparations
On the twelfth day of the journey, after he'd finally gotten vaguely used to the changes made to his body, and they were only a handful of days ahead of decelerating again, they went through his equipment.
"Particle Beam gun, humanoid bias. Recoil-bleedout via field-projector - it can also be used as a shield of sort, if you're dumb enough to let the other guy shoot first, or miss him. Gas-pack goes here... Yes, there. Only needed for the vacuum, though. So long as there's air around you, it can suck its ammunition right out of it. Oh, and don't point its back-end at anything - the recoil bleedout would blast it."
"Pft. You know, I did have the relevant training. No need to repeat everything again."
"I'm just worried about you, my dear Nicolai," the It's a Sin said, smiling.
"Of course. Mrm..." Nicolai took another gun, aimed it at a target maybe twenty metres off, and fired.
Nothing happened.
"Trained, huh? Personally, I'd suggest that you switch from microwaves to ultraviolet..."
"Bah. You're confusing me, that's all. Try to dress somewhat more conservatively, and I wont make any such mistakes."
He changed the setting, and fired again. The target exploded.
"Better. Say... Sin. Is there a reason for you to stalk me?"
"No. I could after all observe you down to your individual atoms without my avatar being anywhere close to you. I just think you're cute..."
"I'd rather not, thanks."
"Aww... But I'm much less dangerous than Galadriël..."
Nicolai cursed inwardly. "You people do way too much small talk, you know..."
"But it's fun." The It's a Sin grinned. "Anyway. Here, take this."
"What's that?" Nicolai asked, holding the about fist-sized amulet the It's a Sin had given him. "Apart from ugly, I mean."
"We can't possibly give you proper armour - first of all, we suck at producing it, and secondly, it'd be a bit too noticeable. You're supposed to operate in secret, not as a one-man army with more media coverage than a Knootian drug lord in a saturday evening show. This is a field projector - should offer a reasonable degree of protection, should issues arise. Auto-tracing of the environment, and connectivity with your own perception are present. It might have issues with untracked c-ordnance, mind."
"Hrm. Neat."
"Apart from that... Well, your standard baggage is already stored, you're familiar with it, too..."
"As I said, I'm trained."
"And I don't trust it. I'm being sent on a permanent, open-ended mission that'll keep me occupied for god knows how long, and might even force me into combat. Please remember that I'm not a warship. I find the idea less than thrilling."
"Well, considering that half your accommodation section turned into additional field projectors and displacers, I'm sure you'll manage..."
"That's beside the point. In any case, you still have a few days. Use them."
"Doesn't sound quite like the old Sin," Nicolai answered, chuckling.
"Well, I wouldn't mind if we could use them together..."
"No, thanks."
"Pft. Scared because I'm a self-upgraded construct, rather than an upload?"
"Well... It's a bit creepy, yes. I'd have thought a drone-body would fit better."
The It's a Sin shrugged. "I like this fleshy body. Much more fun involved."
"I'm sure."
Arrival
They stood in the It's a Sin's hangar, the ship's avatar dressed like usual, which is to say, barely, and her dozen inhabitants around her, discussing the adventure ahead of them, and wishing Nicolai luck.
He'd need it.
He eventually said - or rather, kissed - good-bye to Frederick, with whom he'd spent a few nights (It had been supremely effective at finally making it clear to the It's a Sin that Nicolai wasn't interested in her... it... whatever), packed the obscene amount of firepower he intended to use, sooner or later (In addition to the firepower and related machinery already stored in his shuttle), entered the cramped - it was filled with loads of crap making up his excuse of being a (Maybe less-than-legal) trader - shuttle, waved at the small, cheering crowd gathered in the hangar...
And a few moments later, he was gone.
About five hours in his oversized shuttle until he'd be in the corruption- and crime-ridden backwater system where he was supposed to start out.
Hardly a system that could feasibly be counted as a 'Target', but it was the easiest way to enter the Huntaerian empire in the first place.
Everything else, the really interesting bits... That would come later.
Five hours passed. He disengaged the shuttle's - well, it was somewhat more than a shuttle, although not really a 'Ship', per se - reverse-engineered (And therefore not particularly impressive, but it did its job) hyperdrive - it'd be rather stupid to use the standard drives when trying to infiltrate an entity like Huntaer -, and reality returned.
Hopefully nobody's going to shoot me down.
From: Space Eagle
To: Whom it may concern, Planetary Security/ Spaceport Authorities
Subject: Arrival/ Landing
Nicolai LeClerc from the Space Eagle here, requesting permission to land - business doesn't wait, and I'd hate having to keep it waiting. So... Can I get clearance?
While he waited for a reply, he considered the planet he'd - hopefully - soon be on.
Well. At least I get to see something new. Too bad it's going to be a horrible place.
Nicolai LeClerc - formerly known as MPC-125-C - looked vaguely annoyed at the stack of paper in front of him, obscuring Galadriël Tîwele - who was apparently doing interstellar small-talk with another version of herself, in a language he suspected to be arabic - from his view.
"... So?"
"Just a second, please. You're not the only case I'm presently occupied with. And no, not in the way you think."
"Of course..."
"Anyway..." Galadriël eventually moved the papers out of the way, looking rather casually at Nicolai. "Well. Familiar with an entity called 'Huntaer'?"
"Yes. I believe the Erisavenus did a few purchases from them, and relayed details to us?"
"Correct. Also, it appears to be one of the, if not the, largest producer of clone troopers like yourself - well, like what you've been, once - in existence. And it's presently, shall we say, experiencing trouble. External pressure, as well as a degree of internal issues, although we can't really quantify the latter. And, given that we haven't actually done all that much since the Kiss My Ass and Curious Cat started the program, well..."
"We've spare resources, a cause, and I'm supposed to blow up stuff?" Nicolai said, grinning.
Galadriël didn't. "Correct. Of course, Huntaer's a bit off - different galaxy, in fact - so your journey would take a little while, assuming that you do it. If you do, your job is recon and execution. Find suitable targets, and act either on your own, or inform us so we can bring in forces for quick hit&runs. Raiding facilities and shipments, the likes."
"Well..." Nicolai hesitated, not so much because he was uncertain, but because he thought that it made him look cool.
After all, Galadriël was rather good-looking, and unlike many of his comrades, Nicolai wasn't exclusively interested in the somewhat ambiguously masculine, well, for lack of a better term, 'Warrior Cults' which occasionally tended to involve lots of naked flesh and oil and other such things.
"Well what?"
Shit. Didn't work. "I'm in. Details?"
"Will be given to you by your ride. For now, it'll be the It's a Sin - further support in the form of actual warships and transports for, well, transportation duties will be provided when the time comes. They may be a good bit off, but the distance is manageable, if conditions in the Between are favourable.
"There's of course the possibily of extermination-scale warfare between Huntaer and other entities. Should you be caught in the crossfire... Well, my condolences."
"Why, thank you. I suppose that asking for a squadron to remove such threats would be too much?"
"Correct. Besides, the It's a Sin would be close by, and either have a backup of yourself, or safe your consciousness and run."
"You don't say. Well, anyway... When is my flight going?"
"In about a month' time. We'll have prepared some more details by then, and induced the changes to your present physiology that'll be required. You can also make yourself somewhat more familiar with the subject matter during transit - the ship will update you with whatever it happens to stumble across with its passives, too - and, well, that's it, for now. Oh, one more thing: You''ll not be the only operative. You'll be one of the military branch - there wont be many, a handful at most - and there'll be two more branches, dealing with economic and political matters. Occasional cooperation is likely, to further our goals."
"I take it that 'Acquiring chunks of economic and political power within the Huntaerian empire' is on the list, then?"
"Long term, yes."
"I see. Well... I'm going to have fun, I suppose."
"That you will."
"With you, too?"
"No."
Damnit. Frigid elf.
Departure
Nicolai looked back at the collection of smallish moons that had been his home for... Over half a year, now. He had never really realised just how flimsy it all was. Almost too easy to blow up (Well, it looked like it, anyway).
Flimsy, and oddly natural, there was almost nothing on the moons that'd betray the fact that they were inhabited, that they contained industry, training grounds, apocalyptic weaponry and his friends.
It was rather amusing, really. He'd spent quite a bit of time reading through assorted novels and watching films involving just this kind of situation. One of the recurring themes in all these works was that the hero, upon leaving his home and his friends, would often wonder if he'd return from his dangerous, maybe even suicidal mission. He'd probably be scared, or have his heroic moment (Before - in the better novels - reality would strike and turn him or her into a cynic, frustrated and aggressive cripple), deciding that he'd sacrifice himself for his friends, his home, his nation.
Not so Nicolai. He knew that he'd come back. Healthy and unscarred. Sure, it was possible that he - this version of him - would die. But there were backups of his mindstate, and bodies could be regrown, anyway. The worst that could happen to him was losing a part of his memories, from the moment of his last backup to the moment of his death.
But that really wasn't the same as really, inevitably, and permanently dying.
The effect of this was that war and violence had turned from a serious matter into a game. Do this, do that, try to be a good guy - and when you happen to to make a mistake, you respawn.
In a sense, it was acutely boring.
He was still thinking about all this when the It's a Sin engaged its shifting unit and the image changed from a few harmlessly enough looking moons to the chaotic colour-mixture of the Between.
Transit
The ship moved through the Between, slicing its path through the part of reality where relativity became an object to discuss.
It wasn't a very elegant ship - measuring six-hundred and twenty-two metres in length, six-hundred and two metres in width, and one-hundred and twenty-four metres in height, it was essentially a rather fat flying saucer - but it did its job.
It had a few (Relatively trusted to be secretive, although neither the ship nor Nicolai told them any details about the operation, anyway) inhabitants, too, all of which were constantly moaning and complaining about the ship's field-grip on their molecules - necessary, assuming that one didn't want to be turned into paste by the It's a Sin's acceleration, but still supremely uncomfortable.
After nine hours, the It's a Sin eventually reached its final velocity at rather a lot of millions of times the speed of light in relativistic space, general direction Huntaer. The fields relaxed, then dropped, and the moaning stopped, to be replaced with the usual routines.
Preparation
The ship's avatar was... Befitting its name, to say the least. Tight and flimsy pink-ness on fair - and rather young - skin. Nicolai shuddered at the sheer tastelessness of it all as they went through the alterations his body had received before and during transit, in order to fit the mission profile.
"Isn't it a bit risky?"
"What?"
"Well, the DNA-cocktail. It ought to be classified, no?"
"Ah, no," the It's a Sin's avatar chuckled. "Multiple layers of redundancies and encoding, and your body chemistry has been altered to actually interpret what we've programmed into your cells. I'd be surprised if they could decode it within a decade, and it'd take several to replicate it. Admittedly, your cancer-risk is 3000 times standard, due to the basepair-chaos, but hey. In any case..."
She went on to massage Nicolai, which was probably meant to relax him - in actuality, Nicolai was simply nervous. The discussion continued, mentioning muscle capacities (Now she was massaging his chest), the wavelengths his eyes could deal with, the limits of his optic nerves (Frederick was becoming even more nervous, as the It's a Sin was now even less covered than before. Admittedly, this also meant less pink, which was a good thing), the capabilities of the nanites inside his body, and how they were supposed to deconstruct when they left his body and came into contact with oxygen - they'd do it inside his bloodstream, too, of course, but in there, they'd also replicate, keeping numbers stable -, his organic-scale field-emission capabilities (No more pink, finally. Still, what he saw didn't exactly reassure Nicolai, regardless), his required diet to keep nanite-levels up and his muscles functioning, and so on...
Eventually, he excused himself, leaving the rather frustrated It's a Sin behind.
More Preparations
On the twelfth day of the journey, after he'd finally gotten vaguely used to the changes made to his body, and they were only a handful of days ahead of decelerating again, they went through his equipment.
"Particle Beam gun, humanoid bias. Recoil-bleedout via field-projector - it can also be used as a shield of sort, if you're dumb enough to let the other guy shoot first, or miss him. Gas-pack goes here... Yes, there. Only needed for the vacuum, though. So long as there's air around you, it can suck its ammunition right out of it. Oh, and don't point its back-end at anything - the recoil bleedout would blast it."
"Pft. You know, I did have the relevant training. No need to repeat everything again."
"I'm just worried about you, my dear Nicolai," the It's a Sin said, smiling.
"Of course. Mrm..." Nicolai took another gun, aimed it at a target maybe twenty metres off, and fired.
Nothing happened.
"Trained, huh? Personally, I'd suggest that you switch from microwaves to ultraviolet..."
"Bah. You're confusing me, that's all. Try to dress somewhat more conservatively, and I wont make any such mistakes."
He changed the setting, and fired again. The target exploded.
"Better. Say... Sin. Is there a reason for you to stalk me?"
"No. I could after all observe you down to your individual atoms without my avatar being anywhere close to you. I just think you're cute..."
"I'd rather not, thanks."
"Aww... But I'm much less dangerous than Galadriël..."
Nicolai cursed inwardly. "You people do way too much small talk, you know..."
"But it's fun." The It's a Sin grinned. "Anyway. Here, take this."
"What's that?" Nicolai asked, holding the about fist-sized amulet the It's a Sin had given him. "Apart from ugly, I mean."
"We can't possibly give you proper armour - first of all, we suck at producing it, and secondly, it'd be a bit too noticeable. You're supposed to operate in secret, not as a one-man army with more media coverage than a Knootian drug lord in a saturday evening show. This is a field projector - should offer a reasonable degree of protection, should issues arise. Auto-tracing of the environment, and connectivity with your own perception are present. It might have issues with untracked c-ordnance, mind."
"Hrm. Neat."
"Apart from that... Well, your standard baggage is already stored, you're familiar with it, too..."
"As I said, I'm trained."
"And I don't trust it. I'm being sent on a permanent, open-ended mission that'll keep me occupied for god knows how long, and might even force me into combat. Please remember that I'm not a warship. I find the idea less than thrilling."
"Well, considering that half your accommodation section turned into additional field projectors and displacers, I'm sure you'll manage..."
"That's beside the point. In any case, you still have a few days. Use them."
"Doesn't sound quite like the old Sin," Nicolai answered, chuckling.
"Well, I wouldn't mind if we could use them together..."
"No, thanks."
"Pft. Scared because I'm a self-upgraded construct, rather than an upload?"
"Well... It's a bit creepy, yes. I'd have thought a drone-body would fit better."
The It's a Sin shrugged. "I like this fleshy body. Much more fun involved."
"I'm sure."
Arrival
They stood in the It's a Sin's hangar, the ship's avatar dressed like usual, which is to say, barely, and her dozen inhabitants around her, discussing the adventure ahead of them, and wishing Nicolai luck.
He'd need it.
He eventually said - or rather, kissed - good-bye to Frederick, with whom he'd spent a few nights (It had been supremely effective at finally making it clear to the It's a Sin that Nicolai wasn't interested in her... it... whatever), packed the obscene amount of firepower he intended to use, sooner or later (In addition to the firepower and related machinery already stored in his shuttle), entered the cramped - it was filled with loads of crap making up his excuse of being a (Maybe less-than-legal) trader - shuttle, waved at the small, cheering crowd gathered in the hangar...
And a few moments later, he was gone.
About five hours in his oversized shuttle until he'd be in the corruption- and crime-ridden backwater system where he was supposed to start out.
Hardly a system that could feasibly be counted as a 'Target', but it was the easiest way to enter the Huntaerian empire in the first place.
Everything else, the really interesting bits... That would come later.
Five hours passed. He disengaged the shuttle's - well, it was somewhat more than a shuttle, although not really a 'Ship', per se - reverse-engineered (And therefore not particularly impressive, but it did its job) hyperdrive - it'd be rather stupid to use the standard drives when trying to infiltrate an entity like Huntaer -, and reality returned.
Hopefully nobody's going to shoot me down.
From: Space Eagle
To: Whom it may concern, Planetary Security/ Spaceport Authorities
Subject: Arrival/ Landing
Nicolai LeClerc from the Space Eagle here, requesting permission to land - business doesn't wait, and I'd hate having to keep it waiting. So... Can I get clearance?
While he waited for a reply, he considered the planet he'd - hopefully - soon be on.
Well. At least I get to see something new. Too bad it's going to be a horrible place.