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.

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..."

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.

Winter fragment

Krisla-Tenu waved Rhaek over, and he tossed a datastick to her as he sat down. The chair creaked under his weight as he settled and crossed his leg. “How’s our man?” she asked idly. Pulsing icons signalled updates to a number of projects.

“On his way – the couriers reported back not that long ago.”

“Any problems?”

“Not for us to worry about – insertion should take place in a couple of days.” Rhaek steepled his fingers. “So – what’s our next step? Preparation for extraction or do we have time for some work on the side?” Her terminal chirped, and she held up a hand to quiet him a moment. He got up quietly and left the room.

Jerrek’s thin voice whispered in her ear. “Sorry to break in – can you talk right now?”

“If you’re quick, I’m just about to go into a meeting.”

“Okay – quickly then; I’ve been going through the logs and I think there’s a set-up in progress.”
“In what way?”

“Looks like someone’s trying to get past the Challenge protocols – I’ve found reference to the hiring of a cybrid from the Hunters’ Guild – not sure by who though.”

“The Guild isn’t co-operating?” She rose from her chair, skirting around her desk and leaning out the door. “Rhaek! Get back here now.”

“No – not even in an unofficial way – they’re claiming client confidentiality.” Jerrek continued. Rhaek came back, trotting down the hall. “The original encrypted notices are pretty fragmented, but I’ll see how well Corran and her crew can do with them.”

Benevici fragment

From the eyes of a squirrel, Benevici watched the bustle of activity. A pigeon fluttered in on the bridge's parapet, and he watched through those eyes too.

Crime Fragment

“So here we are again...Happy as can be...” the white haired man’s expression didn’t match the jollity of his sing-song cadenced words. There was a fixed grimace as he almost spat the words out, playing to his audience. There were a mixture of reactions ranging from embarrassed grins and downright mischievous glances from what were obviously work colleagues sharing his lunchtime pub lunch.

Abraham Dennis shuddered to himself and fixed his concentration to staying in the here and now rather than getting caught up in what was beginning to feel suspiciously like a panic attack. Breathe in, breathe out, steady, relax your hands; people will be thinking you’re going to go for them. It was a well-worn mantra that occasionally worked for him. Self consciously, he unhooked his fingers from the rictused claws they had become and closed his eyes for a moment. It was a bad one. He felt as if every fibre of his being wanted to run from the building - or to explode - or both at once. Taking a sharp breath in, he instead opened his eyes again, and mentally pushed and packaged the panic into what he could only visualise as a small room. If he let myself, he could still feel the panic scratching away in the depths, but it would hold for now.

He took the time to finish his meal – although to be fair he bolted most of it rather than savour it. This was definitely a pub from the greasy spoon end of the culinary arts. It was warm though and filling – and right at this moment that was all Dennis needed. His pager rumbled quietly at his hip again. Reluctantly he glanced down at the display.

Crime Fragment

They had a suspect. They had him in custody. They just didn't have enough to hold him and unfortunately the suspect knew it. Dennis and Grayson looked through the glass at the tall and heavily built man. Plainly dressed in black jeans and black cotton t-shirt, he was sitting quietly, with his palms flat to the table. Dennis felt uneasy even at this remove.

Conversation In A Firefight

Suzie changed the clip on her assault rifle and switched to semi-automatic. With three single shots she dropped three separate soldiers - the loud booms and explosive craters suggesting a change in ammunition type.

"HESH rounds" she offered by way of explanation, return fire from the remaining two assailants raking the wall above their heads. She popped up a sensor from her headset over the top of their cover, its micro-eye scannning the immediate surroundings.

In a brief lull she surged again back to her feet, and fired again, twice. She received several large dents and scores in her own plating for her trouble, but there was no more incoming fire.

Dust began to settle. "High Explosive Squash Heads - designed to take out armoured personnel - they penetrate, then fragment."

"Sounds like they'd seriously hurt you too" KT asked

"Nah, I'm a full-body replacement job - chromed through and through. If they got through the brain pan or hit the nerve processors I'd be screwed but if anyone got shot in those locations, armour or no armour they'd be out of the fight."

Imminent Contact - Fragment

There was a prolongued whine of slowing turbofans outside that reduced in scale from deafening to merely loud. Krisla-Tenu risked a peek through the blinds and saw figures moving their way towards the building through the raised dust cloud. They were hunched low against the downdraft, and their bulk suggested armour.

Streetwar Fragment

Running low, Dercis heard the snap of las-rounds flashing overhead, punctuated by the roar of plasma bursts and rolling rattle of projectiles. Behind him, moving from cover to cover came the rest of the squad.

He signed Bern and Parna to move to a raised balcony where their autocannon could get a wider field of fire.

The rest he deployed in pairs in a loose line across the street, sending Freth and Mena to take the battle-scarred foyer opposite Bern's impromptu gun nest.

Fragment - Pinned

The fighting became more intense as the day wore on. The Geline, the elite forces of the enemy had fallen back quickly from the walls before the mobile armour could be brought into range, which left a hard street-by-street, house-by-house, room-by-room struggle to the infantry.

Ducking below a fallen block of limestone, Rath heard the sharp crack of sniper rounds pocking craters into his cover and the surrounding balustrades of the bridge across the canal. Flipping his bead down he called in the hazard - "Sniper high on the south side - got me pinned on the bridge, think third and fourth floor."

"Closing, one minute."

"'Kay. In your own time." Rath grimaced and shifted his position, drawing his feet closer to tuck under him. He risked a quick peek past the block's edge and rocked back as more shots blew small chunks from the floor and nearby wall. He risked a blind spray on automatic into the air to keep their attention on him.

There was two low thumps and a booming rattle of debris that flew past him, followed by a slow uncoiling cloud of vapourised limestone dust. The snipers' guns were silenced.

"That do you? Stop napping, get scouting"

Drone Fragment

The faint buzzsaw crackle was getting louder as the drone returned, swooping on its lifters like a malevolent fly. The large composite lens structures of its sensors, and the pulse gun slung beneath it did little to change that impression.

Grace popped round the corner briefly and fired a burst of flechettes at it, spinning back behind cover as strobes of laser fire burnt through the space she'd just left. She grinned at Tanya, even as she slapped a trip mine on the wall and pushed her along the corridor.

"At least we know one thing now" she said, her pistol burping another cloud of flechettes and knocking back the drone as it emerged from the corner. "You can't dodge lasers, but the targetting motors on that thing aren't half as good as claimed!"

She shoved her charge through a fire door and triggered the mine with a small remote clipped to her belt.Even with their weight against it, the door trembled against the shockwave, but it didn't give way.

There was a pause and a sprinkler system came on, shockingly cold and making making them both yelp. They made for the doors at the opposite end of the short tunnel that led back out to the plaza. Tanya muttered under her breath, Grace kept an eye on the door behind them, but there was no further sign of pursuit.

Bolter Background

Tanya looked at the bulky pistol, trying to work out what was so different about it. It seemed to be made of ceramic and plastic components, which made sense, but the magazine was thinner than expected and there didn't appear to be any external ports to eject casings.

Instead there was a thin grill that ran round the sides and back of the main block "What is it?"

"Its a bolter - designed for zero-g and pressurised environments - like planes and subs" She was holstering one of her own. "Israeli forces developed it for counter-terrorism - its got a high penetration against soft targets where microcharges blow the bolts inside - damages soft tissues and organs, relies on pain to incapacitate. But against hard shell armour or surfaces - like plane fuselages, habitat walls, things like that, the bolts shatter harmlessly."

"Always?"

"Well, mostly... but if they do go through, its only a little hole - easily patched."

Tanya put the pistol back down on the bench.

Horror fragment

Hobbnet's body and limbs seemed to waver and flow with a boneless surge that put Faith in mind of an octopus, surging and elongating. He or it pulled forward up the staircase, like water flowing uphill, tattered clothing binding or shredding loose, or just dropping off as limbs and torso ballooned, shrank, tapered or twisted. And all through this the vacant eyed head lolled on vestigial shoulders.

Mind's Eye Imagery

I was once asked to describe how the fractured facets of myself presented themselves to my mind's eye - the image of a great iron-wheeled palanquin sprang to mind. The child peering out from a shuttered window, the remorseless defender in heavy slabbed armour standing before it, and tied to a leash to the defender a ravening wolf-human hybrid beast with claws and teeth dripping with blood. Its a crude image, but it works.

A Little Light Horror

The warm darkness shivered and he was alone in the night again. The unseen object was heavy in his hand, its edges digging into his flesh where icy fingers curled around it. The natural noises of the evening began to reassert themselves in querulous birdsong and the distant barking of dogs.

He realised he was drenched in sweat and started looking round for a park bench. He settled for a grass tussock instead, ignoring the dew dampness in the seat of his trousers. Painfully, slowly, he forced his fingers to open to reveal his prize.

A lozenge of glassy metal – impossible to tell the colour in the moonlight – lay in his palm. Something about it drew the eye so that it felt like the centre of the landscape. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and thrust the object into his coat pocket, then he lay back and closed his eyes briefly, exhausted.

A Fragment

The voice from the shadows paused, and a laboured breath wheezed, suggesting dry tombs. The figure tugged its makeshift cloak more close. "Let me ask you a question," it said after a moment, "do you believe in the unseen world?"I tried to work out if this was a joke or trap of some sort.

I opted for caution. "What do you mean by that? The unseen world?"There was a sigh with more than a hint of exasperation.

"Spirits, ghosts, gods, fairies, the supernatural - take your pick. Do you accept that there are things outside what you would call 'normal' existence?"

Picking my words carefully I replied with "Well, I'll admit that there are things that happen that I cannot explain - whether that makes them the works of ghosts or anything like that though is a bit of a stretch." I let a nervous smile flicker across my face.

A Cheery Note

"You are never too old to storm a bouncy castle" reads the aspirational message on logging on to the ship's network. Not for the first time I find myself grimacing at the attempt to lighten the mood and turn my attention to the message queue to try and work out what's gone sufficiently wrong in my absence to warrant someone trying to cheer me up. I suppose I could have got up and yelled at someone, but I was halfway through the connection process, with cables inserted and shock-gel sloshing into the pod at chest height and rising. Damned if I was going to get out of the pod now.

Trusting that a slightly less opaque message would have been left if there was a performance problem with the ship I closed my eyes and let my senses expand into my surrogate body. It was a feeling I would never tire of, losing the sense of constraint within the fleshy organics and slipping on a powerful body capable of conquering the void. If I had to describe it in terms of my flesh, it was like getting onto a powerful motorcycle, lying forward on it and melding with it in that position.

My engines, even on standby, were thrumming with a restrained power. The dull throb resonated through the bulkheads and underpinned every conversation by the crew. The massive hydrogen ram-scoops at the front of my arms(hull) tingled with the usual batch of expectant ozone in the hangar bay. In full flight I would feel the intakes grabbing and forcing elemental particles through the length of me and out as exhaust in a torrent. Quiescent like this, it felt like a covering of static electricity enveloping and running through me. It wasn't painful in any sense, but rather I found it lent an air of expectancy and potential. It was like the tensing of muscles before the sprint

Unfamiliar modules had replaced all but one of the usual artillery pieces and I took a moment to examine them - an energy disruption device designed to play havoc with opponents' stored battery power had been fitted. It felt like a small black hole in my belly, while and a dual set of energy drains to pull that energy into my own reserves felt like ravenous mouths.
The feeling behind the aspirational message suddenly made sense.

With the dual warp scramblers and enhanced afterburner systems this ship is designed - I am designed - to capture and confound the enemy. We will pull at their energy and leech their engines, moving faster than they can track their turrets round, while allies pound them at range. It will certainly be a bumpy ride.

Pulsing messages flicker behind my eyelids, most routine, some banter. Its a crew of volunteers for this mission and their spirits are high. I sound the general launch alarm, wait a moment and hear the comms officers begin the pre-flight chatter with traffic control while my support gantries withdraw. Drones clear the way of potential debris and light my path, acting as traffic tugs within the station's gravitational field.

We launched moments later into the clear void, the warmth of solar particles caressing my hull. A series of light thuds along my flanks confirm the micro-drones' return home and the launch of the camera drones. Almost lazily, feeling like I'm stretching after being cooped up for too long, I pirouette away from the hangar entrance to join the other ships. They are hanging in loose formation a few tens of kilometres away.

Even from a distance, I have to admire the collected lethality of looming battleships and cruisers that dwarf me. There are a few of us volunteering for this duty who flit between them like mosquitos. Our frigates are fast, nimble by comparison with these behemoths. Some have settled into the general formation, a couple orbit the group at speed, testing and boasting their speed and maneuverability. Barrelling into proximity from a nearby moon come a pair of battered destroyers, fitted as salvage tugs, and a sleek logistics cruiser bristling with antennae.

A web of communications traffic binds us, the pilots - fellow capsuleers all - to each other, the crews within and between ships. If I switch to the custom filters in my camera drones I see it as a hazy flickering cloud - a sea of information in which we swim. I pull back to a more mundane view to focus on the moment in hand, letting the glory reflect in my memory for now.
The operation begins on a word to the commander from covert ships - a terse message flashes up onscreen, matched by an audio command to align to the designated system gate, and moments later as acknowledgements scroll down my vision, the web of comms tightens to link our warp systems, pulling all the ships within moments of each other on the same directed course. We are seconds from contact.