Seige Fragment

There was a moment's silence. Then the roar of guns erupted from the upper stories of the building, tens of spurts of stuttering flames lancing out from the darkened window spaces. The gunfire raked the streets and the plaza below, sending stone and plaster dust into the air from the impacts. For a moment, both sides were deadlocked in their respective positions. Then hurried calls for support brought in fire from the mortars of the 5th Company on top of the block, collapsing the roof on the defenders and buying time for the gap to be closed for the close-quarters room-clearing...

Breach

The scream of jet engines announced the counter-strike more assuredly than any piece of public statement in the forum. Banking low across the market, the Lightnings spat flurries of hard rounds, strafing the area as an open target.

It was a tight, well-disciplined formation that was gone mere moments after the attack began. For a moment, it left a haze of dust and streamers of ragged cloth twisting in the vortexes that came trailing after. The big guns opened up then; breaching the thick city walls and chewing large gaps in the narrow twisting streets. The ground seemed to groan in protest with each concussion.

Pastoral Fragment

Broad fields of crops were basking in the sunlight, tended by semi-autonomous servitors. Scanning the scene, she could see a number of different grains being cultivated in the valley. The wind was making the stalks shift in waves that rippled with the gentle gusts. Although the fields were sizeable, there were
occasional field boundaries, marked by trees. Directing her gaze towards them, the suit's sensors zoomed in at a subvocalised command to pick out a rough track following the tree line and under their cover. She datted the view to her troops' tactical processors.

Confrontation fragment

He clenched his fist, and muscles bulged and shifted - bones spreading and ratchetting into new positions to make room for a rapidly extruding carapace of armour and implanted weaponry.
Bensen back-pedalled away from him, swaying away from a dangerously fast-swung blow.



His own implants urged distance. The guard's transformation had been swift, plating major muscle groups with a thick carapace. The joints had a fibrous-looking covering too from what he could see. His clothing had obviously been tailored with a good degree of elasticity to cope with the changes.


A large spike protruded from the central knuckle of each transformed hand, and it was these that Bensen focussed on, keeping furniture between him and the guard.

Igor-ish Rant Fragment

"Well, you're still alive and breathing - which has to be a bonus in anyone's books - so, you must have something of value to him after all. By the looks of you though, he wasn't entirely happy so rest up, and let's see if I can help while away the hours until he comes back."

"Where's he gone? Ah, all in its own time I think. Now, let me check those manacles and we'll begin. Let's see - driver's license, insurance, library card - doesn't really match the gothic rebel look you've adopted there does it?"

"Right, we've a lot to get through before dawn, so I'm going to replace the gag, like this... and now we're ready."

"Oh stop moaning, those knives aren't meant for you - what do you take me for? Some mindless slavering Igor with a hard-on for torture and mutilation?"

"Pah, you make me cringe with embarrassment - setting yourself up as a creature of the night; aping things you've never seen for yourself; and then going back to show off your latest act of token rebellion to your addle-brained halfwit friends. But let me tell you something - I've seen and heard them afterwards. They think you're a flake and can't wait for you to go away."

"Well, perhaps tonight we can arrange that for them, one way or another..."

Rambling Block Break

And now, what? Do we wait for chaos to arise once more, casting underfoot the measured strictures of happy order; or instead take up the challenge implicit in such enterprises and strike at them in our own time and way? If there is to be dynamism and change, better it be directed than allowed to overcast all that it surrounds.

The danger is in the extremes. Too much order, and too much chaos. Both in the end stifle the creative and shackle the reason. One should not exist without the other - this is a maxim often repeated - but the true discussion and debate comes in the attempt to fight the urge to merely choose the median point. True neutrality is an impossibility to the rational mind and the sensitive heart alike - for while the attempt to choose not to choose can be seen as admirable, it merely acts as a signpost of the chooser's unwillingness to declare for one or the other. That way lies apathy and the death of the soul inherent in that path.

Make the choice. Neither one path or the other is wrong in itself. It is merely a choice of methodology. It is the results of that choice - what you choose to do - that counts...

warfare fragment

The air seemed to thrum in the aftershock. All around, trees were bent and split, with isolated brush fires burning despite the generally soggy undergrowth. He laughed and coughed a moment later from inhaled smoke, an implanted gland quickly generating fluids to compensate.