Northeastern USA, that is.
Here in central NJ, the snow is between 2.5 and 2.9 inches, and it's been falling since about 5 PM -- call it 6 hours.  There's been no sign of the forecast heavy winds yet.  Total accumulation predicted is 5 to 8 inches.
How's it going for everyone else in the area of effect?
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

If you've been paying attention, you will note that the "chapter progress" note at the top of the forums now lists chapters 3 and 4 of DW8, with a total size slightly larger than the size chapter 3 used to have.  Yes, that means I've split the chapter and I'm readying the new chapter 3 for release.  It won't be immediate, though -- I still need to pass it by my prereaders.  Still, you can think of it as a belated holiday gift...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

The time has finally come for me to create an image of Noah Scott for the FenWiki. (Why now, rather than a year or two ago? It's taken this long for somebody to create his Season 2 corporate-state-leader private office - specifically, http://www.sharecg.com/v/73962/view/11/Poser/The-Office]rduda's new model.)

But I have a problem. Noah started as a sort-of self-insert, but rather quickly grew away from that concept and became the capitalist that everybody loves to hate. And I've since done an actual self-insert into the Convention Authority, and nobody comments on any resemblance between Rob Donaldson and Noah Scott. Thus, I no longer have any idea as to my lead character's appearance, other than "tall overweight white guy who wears glasses."

So I'm opening this up to the hivemind: What does Noah look like?

If you're going to answer, please don't read anyone else's answers before you post your own.

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--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Hopefully this'll finish. A spinoff from the ongoing Lun monster thing.

Mackie and Anika build a ship, then take a trip.

Part 1 on Pastebin due to Yuku now triggering 403 errors for any post that includes an email address in the text. Even a fake one.

Part 2 of 4-ish

Quote:It sat waiting, frost forming on the steel skin covering the nitrogen tanks. White ice-fur had begun to grow around the fill-ports while pale fingers of cold fog fell from the hoses joining them to the cryogenic cart. A tangle of other cables rolled across the hanger floor to a power point, bringing the onboard electronics gently up to their operating temperatures. The sterile scent of pure ammonia drifted in the air, mingling with the oily smell of diesel fuel, sharp chemical vapours venting from the drive coolant tanks, hot carbon, electric ozone and raw brushed steel.

Anika stared up at the bare-metal fuselage, resisting the urge to touch it with her hand where it was frosting. It left her feeling cold inside, an apprehensive chill filling her body. It raced along power-hydraulic lines and crawled up her back.

It'd been given a beautiful brushed-steel finish by the paint shop, matched with metalflake-effect Bubblegum Pink accents acriss the top of the wings, on both tails and on the engine intakes. It was a tribute to her original A-wing.

A pair of massive engine intakes threatened to swallow her whole, both of them being large enough for her to stand upright inside. Variable ramps, bypass ducts and vents shaped and formed the supersonic gas-flow, allowing the the monster craft to properly fly at supersonic speeds in an atmosphere.

Riding Hi-Streamer was a steel-built monster, bigger than many passenger shuttles. It loomed over her, pushing her down into the ground while the Little Cool Rider always invited her aboard. It stood aloof, a prima-donna requiring meticulous preparation before every flight. She had to stretch to reach the bottom of the fuselage under the cockpit. Even if she could support herself again on her outstretched hands, she still doubted she'd be able to reach the canopy.

The big Mig was a cool thing - no doubt about it. The sensor arrays alone made her grin reflexively just thinking about the radiated power even if they were a generation or three behind on the power efficiency curve. A pair of chin-like buldges under the cockpit thrummed with electric power, resonating with the power feeds in her body. Phased array sensor built into oversized winglets hummed as they warmed up.

But it just didn't feel like it was *hers*. She was proud to have built it and excited at the positive reaction the underspace gave it - even if some voices criticised it for being inelegant and unsubtle.

It was the one thing spoke of it belonging to her, something she hoped was enough of a foundation to start building a relationship. Anika's skill was in adapting the tools she could get, learning to work with them and making them work. Even if it resulted in something twice as heavy and with four times the power requirement of its nearest competitor. Only the Blackbird was larger, and it was classed as a space-ship because it actually had a proper crew cabin.

Even with two successful tests under her belt, it didn't feel like her. She didn't want to tell Mackie she still regretted selling her beloved A-Wing to build it - not after the work they'd both put in to make it real. She barely wanted to admit it to herself.

"Hey, Anika? You ready to go? Third time lucky."

Mackie stood on top of the engines, holding an empty plastic container that'd once been filled with twenty litres fresh coffee. He tossed it away, not paying attention to where it'd landed. It joined a jumble of other parts. He took a moment to try and adjust the skintight electroactive polymer flightsuit once again, struggling to make it comfortable. Anika felt herself compelled to stretch against the polymer squeezing down on her body.

"We should've used normal seats." The suit started to creak as she strained against it. "These suits are so uncomfortable."

"Tell me about it," the teenaged android grimaced."Just need to unhook the nitrogen feeds and we're finally done."

By his tone, she could tell that even he regretted building something that required so much molly-coddling before it'd fly. It'd taken most of a day to get Riding Hi-Streamer ready to fly - and that was just the normal checklist before flight. Even the flight suits took forever - and more than a little secret purple helper - to get into.

"I don't want to have to do all this anytime I want to go to Serenity to see Nene."

Anika took a tight grip of the grab handles on the Nitrogen feed nozzle. It unlatched with a gaseous hiss and a spray of cryogenic fluid. Flakes of frost fell around her feet, trailing streamers of white fog. She began to think it might've been a good idea to get a proper pair insulated gloves right before a frigid chill shot up through her arms, stabbing straight to the core of her body. The shock of it caused her hands to jam shut, shock-cooled valves all along the hydraulic lines feeding her arms binding up and grinding together. She yelped in surprise, struggling to drop the hose even as she felt it eat into her hands.

She shook her arms for what seemed like forever, cold fingers rising through her body, before it finally dropped to the concrete floor with a clatter, the last few dregs of nitrogen hissing out into a puddle on the concrete.

Her arms spasmed as she worked the jammed valves loose.

Mackie's face appearred from over the lip of the air-intake, looking down at her with a smile. "You Okay?"

"Peachy," she answered sourly, kicking the frigid hose away.

"Time for the blessing then," he grinned at her.

She frowned back at him. "Even I feel silly..."

"Can't help it," said Mackie with a shrug, "You know what happened last time."

Anika's shoulders fell. "I know."

That was the funny thing about wave quirks. Nobody would naturally think that marching three times backwards in a circle around the spacecraft chanting "Gremlins Out" while dousing it in lemon juice cast from an aspergillium made from the bumper of an old AMC Gremlin would save them all from constant annoying glitches, but after the chaos of the second test flight when they'd resisted the urge to do so, neither of them doubted that that was exactly what was necessary to ensure and safe and reliable flight. They just knew it had to be done... no matter how many people in the hangar thought it was funny

Kotono stood on the gantry above with her own maneuver gear strapped to her waist, watching with a well aimed video camera covering half of her face.

Anika gave her the finger

Kotono's teasing grin broadened as she waved down with her free hand. "Don't worry! The interwave will see everything."

Her voice echoed off the hangar walls.

"You're mean!" Anika whined, doing her best impression of a wounded puppy.

"You're own fault," Kotono called back. "It stays up until I get an apology."

Anika stopped, feeling a hot flush of embarrassment rush up through her body. Her cheeks turned rose-pink as hydraulic pressure rose behind synthetic skin. "No!"

She felt a finger tap her gently on the shoulder. She whipped around on her heel, storm-clouds already brewing over her head.

"Hey Anika. You screwed it up. We have to start again," Mackie said.

Golden eyes bored through him. A nervous giggle quivered up his throat as he took a step back.

"Fine!" the gynoid huffed, snatching the chromed aspergillium from his hands, before turning once more and

"We're just lucky Daryl has a follow up appointment," sighed Mackie.

"They're horrible to me..." Anika fished for sympathy.

"Frigga's Dirty Pair," Mackie breathed. "Just don't hack their terminals again...."

Anika's lips pursed into a bitter pout, her face for a moment looking like she'd just taken a bite out of a fresh lemon. She marched around the spacecraft, dragging stormclouds behind her while Mackie did his level best not to burst out laughing at the jeering coming from the peanut gallery. Again, they completed three full orbits, dousing the jet with the sacred lemon juice while chanting the mantra for banishment of gremlins. Finally, they both shared the last of the lemon juice between them, sipping it from the chromed demon-shaped head of the aspergillium before using the aspergillium to shatter a mirror.

"Done," said Anika, drawing a long breath in through her nose. She gazed up at it once more, still looming over her.

"Lets go," said Mackie, wearing a giddy grin.

They had to get someone with a forklift to act as a makeshift lift, a wooden pallet on the forks to act as a stable platform to stand on.

If the Hi-Streamer was huge, the cockpit was tiny. Anika had to twist herself around the star tracker to nestle herself into her chair. Automatic connectors locked her hard into place, saving her the trouble of fumbling with dozens of belts, straps and pressure hoses. The one good thing about the fortified-suit design was that it made getting into and out of the jet easier - even if getting into the suit was a whole lot harder. Her helmet was a carbon-fibre derivative of a Hardsuit helmet, with the same visor, intercomm and display structures. Memory foam kept it snug over her head, once she'd managed to gather her hair.

Instruments and display systems crowded in arround her. By her right hand, the nav-console with star map. Beneath that, the comm's array, Right in front of her, reaching out from the instrument panel, the main sensor display and Interwave master system. A number of indicators and guages flanked it, reporting the status of various elements of the main array. Further multi-function screens offered information from secondary systems and external stores. Her left hand came to a FrogPad keyboard and trackball, then the comms controls Between the various screens and guages were dozens of indicator lamps and switches leaving little of the original duck-egg blue instrument panel visible.

The front cockpit for Mackie was little better, being mostly old-style analogue steam-gauges with a single multi-function display.

Anika struggled to settle herself in the chair, straining against restraints that fixed her body rigidly in place to the seat. Head and neck restraint systems held her rigidly upright. Uncomfortable memories surfaced for a moment, but she mastered them quickly.

"Three Days In here." she sighed. Heavy switches thunked under her fingers as she began powering up the main arrays.

Mackie's voice crackled in her ear. "Lucky you don't get cramps... I'm biomimetic."

"Check your connection," she said, tapping on the side of her helmet

"This better?"

"Yep."

Still a little tinny, but liveable. Another hour of preflight checks and system calibrations beckoned. She thought about automating some of the system checks but it would just add another two or three layers of complexity on top of an already hideously complex system. She reassured herself that going through it all wasn't difficult - it was just numbingly tedious to flip through the checklist booklet strapped to her thigh and hit the right switches in sequence. Still, it was never far from Anika's mind that the main arrays were capable of putting out enough heat to melt themselves in seconds if she powered them up before the coolant compressors.

"This is why I hated being in the Knightwing," said Mackie, through the comm-link.

"Pre-Flight?"

"Some people expect the shipmind to just do it."

Anika's mind fell back to her own origins for a moment. "Your sister wasn't that bad, was she?"

"No...not really. I still had to do it because I was faster but she didn't take it for granted." He paused for a moment. "But some people had problems treating the voice behind the panel as a person and not just a part of the ship. They tended to find it hard to get assigned to flight missions after a while once their reputation got out amongst the 'birds and no-one wanted to fly with them."

She heard the grin in his voice.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Some of the old Habu's were the worst gossips. And I had to listen to them for weeks at a time."

Anika felt herself giggle, momentarily loosing her place in the checklist before her mind reset itself. Step 247 of 403. She underlined it with a grease-pencil to be certain.

"I mean, there was stuff that was cool, like soaring through the sky with my wings outstretched covering whole planets. And there was so many things going on that I had to be aware of, so it was like my mind was huge, like having a thousand eyes to watch a thousand things at once and the awareness to act on a thousand things at the same time." The pilot paused. Anika glanced forward through a gap between her panel and the cockpit canopy to see him flexing his gloved hand in front of his face. "But then, I was still stuck inside a plane. I could only go where the Knightwing went, when somebody wanted it to go somewhere and I couldn't really do anything else but wait and think. I'm smaller now - I guess - but I can do more stuff and I can do it when I want to."

Anika's thoughts turned inwards once more. "At least I wasn't tied to the DD."

"And I can wear the Born to Penetrate t-shirt and know it's the truth," the teenaged android announced.

"Mackie!" Anika shrieked.

A barking laugh answered her. "Bone-R, Lancer. Penetration Bomber! Slipping it in beneath their defenses then sliding up the valley to strike the critical point!"

Anika kicked at the firewall, sending shocks up her own leg. It wasn't quite his arse, but it was as close as she could get without getting out. "I'll kill you!" she kicked again, "I'll Kill you!" she kicked it harder, rattling the control panels. "I'll Kill you if you say things like that for the whole trip. Three days in here with your sense of humour."

Deep laughter answered her through the speakers in her helmet as she sat there fuming with her arms across her chest. An angry growl rolled up out of her throat. "Grow up, Mackie."

"Never!"

"Can we please go fly now?"

"Still waiting for the engines to preheat. Another ten minutes."

A frustrated sigh rolled up her throat. At least it gave her time to calibrate the star-traking autopilot inertial navigation system to Frigga's current position and radial velocity, relative to the sun before finally booting up the main interwave circuit manually, command by command. Such were the joys of working with prototype systems. Some day soon, she promised herself, this would all be shell-scripted.

Eventually.

That was the trade-off she'd made when she built the system. Nobody on Frigga could build the sort of intelligent software systems that allowed people to just point to a target and click 'analyse' - that took some class-A wizard expertise, a little handwaving with the attendant ethical concerns when the system woke up, months and years of work, or all three. The alternative to an expert system, was an expert operator.

That thought brought a self satisfied smile to her face, right as the main interwave systems came up.

"Okay Anika, let's start this thing,"

At least she didn't have to worry about that. "Go for it," she answered. "Just don't cut out ground power before you switch in the main generators."

"I fixed the checklist."

She flicked her own booklet back to page one, then placed one cautious hand over the primary power switch - just in case. She felt an electric buzz rise up her spine as the right engine began to murmer. It built on itself, spooling up to a gentle moan. She could hear the pilot adjusting something in the forward cockpit, before her clicked the ignition on. It lit with a soft 'pompf' and a hard kick through the back - an injection of coffee liquer into the ion chambers sparking the reaction. Coil blades spun up to a siren's wail, a deep roar building behind her.

Anika could feel the spacecraft start to vibrate with energy, life entering the metal structure. It settled down into a hollow turbine whistle, the scent of scorched coffee filling the air.

"One stable," Mackie announced. "Spark on two."

Anika felt the kick as it punched to life, winding itself up to a steady idle. A single indicator lamp informed her that ground power had been disconnected and the spacecraft was now running off its own generators. Each one had to provide enough power for the entire sensor suite on its own. The scent of ozone began to filter through her helmet mask.

Both engines howled up to full power, the spacecraft straining against its brakes. She felt it push forward, begging to be set free. Both afterburners tore into life, ripping at the air around her and drumming on the side of her head. She could hear the engine turbines screaming to be set free. There was an energy inside the jet. It fizzed through her body, racing along her arms, crackling in her powerfeeds and network links. It carried the bare minimum of armaments but it still crackled with single-minded purpose. This was no mere light personal shuttle. On a very real level, Riding Hi-Streamer was a weapon, one as deadly as a full-on bomb-run in the right hands. In her hands was the sword of information, hammered from raw data in an electronic forge, given its edge by the keeness of mind.

A giddy, gleeful giggle rose out of her throat. A sense of mischief sparked in her body, tingling through her fingertips as she carressed the keys.

Another thing she had in common with the big fighter jet then.

Both engines wound down slowly, easing themselves back into a hollow waiting idle.

"I think we're good to go. Can you get us clearance Anika, and lock your canopy?"

She pulled the latch from underneath it. The cockpit canopy slammed down hard, threatning to bite her fingers off. Immediately the noise from the engines damped down to a distant murmur.

"I'm locked.. give me a moment on the clearance I need to send the flight plan."

First leg to Atalante. Six hours. Second Leg to Ultima, Forty-nine hours. Third Leg to Nostromo/LBBL, Five hours. A little longer than just scooting straight out to the Limit then turning to Nostromo perhaps, but safer for a prototype spacecraft. A single keypress sent it out through the Hi-Streamer's own node, filing it with each destination along with their expected arrival times. It'd be a half hour before the acknowledgement from the catgirls turned up, while Atalante took moments.

"Is anyone up there in the control room?"

Silence answered.

"Anyone?"

"Gimme a minute, I just got here..."

Jet? Strange, Anika thought. She wasn't scheduled to be up there, it was supposed to be one of the newcomers

"I need the main bay door opened."

"Yeah, hang on. I'll set the auto-sequence."

The cyber's voice oozed irritation. Mackie was chuckling away to himself in the front cockpit and Anika couldn't help but feel there was some corrolation.

"I saw your exam results for the last semester..."

Mackie stopped chuckling.

"If you fail the year, you lose your scholarship. If you lose your scholarship, that's it. You know that right?"

Her tone had flattened.

"Yeah sis, I know. It was a bad exam, that's all," he assured her. "I aced half the subjects. And I brought a reader with me with my study material on it...."

"Please Mackie. Don't just focus on the projects and subjects you like."

"Alright, I promise."

Anika could almost hear him rolling his eyes.

"Bay's evacuated and pumped down. Gate's opening. See you in a week."

And like always, his Sister trusted to faith that he'd do it. Anika decided to keep her comments to herself on the matter. It was a family thing, and none of her business. No matter what he did with his life.

"Later sis!"

Anika forgot all about it when she felt the big jet begin to inch forward, Mackie motoring the engines to push it out of it's parking bay. She saw the inky black of space beyond through her canopy porthole for only a few moments before the Mig turned to face and she felt a thrill run through her body. It might not have been perfect, but it was something she'd built herself. Parked along the landing bay walls were a motley array of light shuttlecraft and fencars, most of which she didn't recognise anymore. They were all new to Frigga - belonging to newcomers who came when the Millenium took control of the mine. Parked amongst them was a single old A-wing that resurrected all her feelings of guilt over selling the Little Cool Rider.

She still missed that little shuttle. That thought was left behind when both engines began to howl, accelerating her hard down the bay. An invisible hand tried to crush her down into her seat, the pressure rising as both engines surged to full power. The walls began to rush by, overhead lights strobing through the canopy portholes. She struggled to get a view ahead, pressing her head against the tektite glass. Open space enveloped the craft, the darkness swallowing it whole.

The pressure of acceleration didn't relent. She glanced at the velocity gauge to see it already beginning to crawl past one percent lightspeed. The white needle kept accelerating around the dial. Her sensors showed the asteroid power signature receding rapidly away behind her.

"Riding High Streamer, Clear," she radioed, almost forgetting to do so.

She exhaled a hot breath, satisfied herself that nothing was wrong with the Mig before settling herself back for the rest of the journey.

"Okay, we're on autopilot," said Mackie, exhaling a deep breath. "Target speed is set to five. STAINS is tied in. Everything looks good up front. You've got the flight plan."

"Setting course for Atalante," she answered. "Six hours."

Anika keyed the first course-change in to the navigation computer, the Mig rolling itself slowly around towards 36 Atalante for the first leg of the journey. Only another three days to go.

-------

She switched to navigational RADAR, then back to the IDAR monitor. It wasn't there, then it was. In the background, the music continued to play, tugging at the back of her mind. She switched again, adjusting a few settings before filtering it through her system once more. The system sifted through the raw data, searching for a clear signal amongst all the clutter and noise.

Anika was almost ready to write it off as a glitch in the IDAR array - it was a prototype after all.

The computer finished its work, offering its results to her with an electronic chirrup.

"Bang-Bangin' Hammers in my head..."

The android's voice burst into her ears, singing along with the music that was now front and centre in her awareness.

"Mackie..." she tried.

"Bang-Bangin' Hammers in my head...."

He was drumming on his console in time with the music.

"Mackie!" she yelled.

"In my head... In my head!"

"Hey! Commander Hadfield!" she screamed, kicking the bulkhead in front of her. "I'm trying to concentrate back here!"

The singing stopped. The song continued a few moments on its own before it was cut off too.

"Yeah sorry Anika, it helps me study."

He wasn't sorry. Not at all. She was certain of it. It just made her bristle all the more.

"Study?"

"I've nothing else to do right now..." he said. "Everything's set."

"With music that loud?" she asked, pointedly.

"Well, by tying an emotional link to the words of a song which I can definitely remember, it helps me remember what I'm studying," he answered with an audible smirk.

"You're an android. That only works for humans."

"But I'm am too a real boy!" he pleaded mockingly.

A frustrated growl rose out of Anika's throat as she felt herself begin to grow warm once more. She swallowed a deep breath of cool air, confirming what she'd

"Mackie. I think we're being followed."

"By who?"

"I don't know," she answered quickly. "I thought it was a distortion on the IDAR at first - it's a bit towards the edge of the field of view - but there's a faint EM trace too." She paused, doublechecking the cross section on the navigational array. "It's so small I wouldn't have noticed it if I didn't specifically look."

"A stealth..." he breathed.

"Or very small," she corrected. "But it's been twelve thousand off our right wing for the last half hour." Anika swallowed a lump. "It's watching us, using passive sensors."

"Are we going to go full active?"

The humour had drained from his voice.

"Not yet. I don't think they realise they've been spotted. I don't want to spook them."

"I could slow down a little and force them to fire their thrusters to slow down. Or turn towards them."

He knew the game well enough. Being the KnightWing's pilot for over three years, and being the Knightwing itself for another one had that effect.

"Slow down... just a little."

"Roger"

She felt the tug on her restraints as the Mig slowed ever so slightly. She focused her sensors on the spot, recording with IDAR, RADAR, optical and wavescanners. She saw it pull away ahead for a few moments -just a few thousand kilometres. A small smile crawled across her lips. She bared her teeth in a grin as she saw its output spike, braking thrusters firing to slow it down, sliding it back to its chosen position off the right wing.

"Got it!"

A few keypresses brought up the signature on her monitor, before offering it to the database of signatures held in the computer behind her. It warbled electronically to itself as it compared the signal against a few common drive signatures.

"What is it?"

The system chirped as it completed the search, reaching the end of the database. The result flickered up in green letters on the monitor in front of her.

"Unknown," Anika read aloud, puzzled.

Something new? Not enough information? It could be any number of things but her curiosity was piqued. Her mind raced to life, warming her body to the core. She felt the new dampers take effect, stabilising her output at a level her natural cooling could handle. Turning the cabin air-conditioning up to full let her run a little hotter, a little sharper.

"We can't go active without giving away that we've spotted them, and that we can spot them," she thought out loud. "And they'll activate any defences they have which'll make getting a good identification much harder."

Her mind drifted back to her first few days amongst the underspace, when they were still introducing her to the tools and techniques of the trade, and how it had been explained to her at the time. The trick with electronic warfare was to get your opponent to show all their cards, without revealing too many of yours in the process. It was almost a form of slow poker, with two players hidden behind dividers. She'd had to look up what Poker was at the time, but the metaphor still held. Neither could see each others hand. Neither could see how much the other had in their pot to play with. All they could both see was what was on the tables in front of them. What each player was betting, what cards they'd chosen to show and what was coming down the river.

Every single signal sent out was a bet - a gamble that it'd reveal something about the cards the opponent held, without revealing too much of her own in the process. Any signal sent could be analysed. Any signal analysed could be turned into information - information that could be turned back against an opponent. She could leak information - deliberately show off one of her own cards and watch how her opponent responded, how they changed their betting in response. It might reveal more about them than she'd given up about herself.

Anika could surmise that whatever was parked off her wing didn't know it had been detected yet. Even when passive, it still emitted small drabbles of radiation - the signatures of various pieces of equipment and powered devices. It was nowhere near enough to give her a full picture of what it could see of her, but still hinted at something very carefully designed - the Hi-streamer emitted more noise when parked and shut down.. No active emissions whatsoever - she was as certain as she could be of that. It was content to watch, wait and slurp. Knowing it was there, she could modify the operating profiles of her equipment to hide her true capabilities.

She could bluff and know it wouldn't be called. She liked to keep it that way for as long as possible; things got complicated when both sides knew the other was out there.

Whomever it was, unfortunately, wasn't a moron. They knew what they were doing. They'd parked themselves on the sunward side, with the sun behind them, so any attempt to track them visually or with IR was doomed to failure. Without the right filter it was lost in the glare at best and at worst, it'd damage the equipment. She had to assume they might have other defences ready and waiting.

Pondering on it, she remembered a trick she'd once seen Lebia Maverick use in a thread way back when Anika'd just introduced herself to the underspace. There were dozens of radio sources in the solar system - hundreds even. Some of them were pretty powerful. There were lightspeed and interwave comm's relays all over the main belt. Each one of those signals would reflect off the target as sure as one of her own would, and she could receive both the original as a reference on the left-hand array and the faint reflection on the right. Then she could cross-corrolate both signals using what she already knew to get a proper detection image. It was like using a match compared to a full blown camera flash, but it could work and give some idea of the size of what was out there. Once she had that, she could make careful guesses about its power and drive systems based on what she could see.

She scanned through for nearby sources - the most powerful being Atalante's outer marker navigation beacon - still over half an AU away. Nothing better. And with the target having some sort of RADAR stealth, she guessed that any reflections from it would be orders of magnitudes smaller than they would normally be anyway, edging close to the detection threshold of some of her gear. It'd take far more processing power than she had behind her just to sort it out from the background noise. The multidimensional fast fourier transforms alone would need quantum-level processing to get done in time to be useful. Getting a really good result would require multiple signals, from multiple sources to get a spread of frequencies and returns which could be compared with each other and that was several frustrating orders of magnitude beyond what she was capable of.

She could take it and grab the raw data, then send it somewhere were there was that much power. That was the whole point of building the interwave link into the thing in the first place. But that relied on someone being interested enough by it to take on the puzzle and there were never guarantees of that - she just didn't have the pulling power of the bigger names.

A wave of aggravation rolled through her as she glared at the screen, stymied for a moment. Aware of how warm she was starting to get, she adjusted her air conditioning to feed her the coldest air possible.

She could call Atalante and ask them to transmit a standardised comm's test message under the guise of a system's calibration. It'd be a brighter signal, sure, which'd drop the processing requirements down to something manageable but then the target would also hear her make the request - they'd have a chance to defend themselves somehow or just break off.

An encrypted transmission with an explanation why they needed a signal might work. But the target could detect the transmission and even if they couldn't decrypt it, it wouldn't take a genius to corrolate it with sudden high-power radio illumination. They'd know they'd been detected.

She swallowed her pride and took a minute of raw data using the outer marker as a radio source, packaged it up with everything else she'd taken along with a short description of events what she thought it was, and promised herself she'd post it online when she wasn't so busy. The system chewed away on it, compressing it together into a nice juicy tarball ready to be sent away while Anika drummed her fingers on the keypad, searching for another option.

"Are we going to do anything?" asked Mackie, breaking through her concentration.

"I'm thinking..." Anika snapped back at him.

"I could just outrun 'em," he said, clamly. "We're barely ticking over as it is."

She glared at the monitors in front of her. This was too tantalising a challenge for her to give up that easily. Something was out there. And the idea of that something being new to the Underspace thrilled her to the core.

"I don't know if they can keep up or not, Mackie."

And that was the first excuse she could think of.

"Fine..." he sighed.

Which was exactly as convincing as she expected it to be. Annoying, she thought. Her eyes shot wide open. That was the answer. Right there in front of her. Thank you Mackie! She stiffled a sudden, impish giggle, a mischievous grin spreading across her lips.

"Hey Mackie, could you pass your media player back here?"

There was a pause as he was taken momentarily aback by the surprise request.

"Uh yeah, why?"

"So I hook it up to the main array and use it as a source," she answered, pride rising in her voice. "It'll give us a signal to bounce off the target - then I can filter the music out because I know what it is and it'll look like we're just being rude rather than specifically looking for them."

She struggled not to just rub her hands together in villainous glee. It was perfect. It was a solution that suited her to a tee. If you couldn't beat them technically, try socially.

"So they'll pick it up at Atalante too?"

"That's a problem," she answered. And part of the solution, she didn't say. "But they'll like the data we give them."

Mackie nudged it up through the space between the cockpit canopy and her monitor, struggling to poke it back towards her.

"I think there's some Pavarotti in there, use that."

She blinked. "Pavarotti?"

"Comin' out their asses..." he answered in a sing-song tone.

Ick, Tom clancy references. She reached forward, struggling to get a good grip with her fingers on a device that was little more than a black plastic pebble with a small screen. All she succeeded in doing was to nudge it annoyingly away from herself before she hit upon the idea of pinning it against the canopy and spinning it down towards her.

It dropped. With relief, she caught it between her legs. If it'd gone on the floor, she wasn't picking it up without undoing her restraints. Hooking it in to the system required a few creative hardware and software hacks but nothing too difficult.

If she set it to broadcast omnidirectionally through both arrays it'd look more like someone just being a bit of an arsehole with a new toy than someone looking for a stealth. The angry messages arriving minutes later would seal the deal. With half the array elements set to transmit and the others to receive the reflection, it was perfect. The processing was made so much easier that'd it'd take minutes instead of months,.

She set the mains to go live as soon as she pushed play, then waited a moment, doublechecking to see if everything was set up to record. She drummed her fingers on the keypad impatiently, waiting for some of the more exotic sensors in the wing extensions to warm themselves up. Synthetic aperture imagery was a bit of an ask, but she decided to try for it anyway. She turned a switch to set the main array power, before keying in a flurry of commands to tie everything together.

The last thing she did was switch off the Hi-Streamer's transponder. It'd help it look more like a silly prank, she figured. And might just shield from some of the resulting hate mail due after flooding a major voice channel with a fat tenor singing Nessun Dorma.

She made one last check that everything was set and satisfactory, allowing herself an impish grin. All green across her panel, systems ready and waiting.

"Here we go," she said.

Anika pushed play. The timer on the media player began to tick and she held her breath, waiting to see what the result would be.

Mackie began to laugh.

----------------------------

Let me first start off by wishing everybody a very merry (if belated) Christmas, even if it's not your holiday of choice.  Everybody could use another good day, right?
However, since the 25th has now passed, it's time to look back on the cool stuff we got, and be thankful.
My family kept things short and sweet this year.  I got an extended battery for my 3DS XL (three times the charge!), the new Zelda game for it, RWBY Vol. 1 on Blu-Ray, and the usual money.

Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
story.




                    DRUNKARD'S WALK STEPLET:
                  THE FIRST...  NO...  WELL...

                     by Robert M. Schroeck


  "Keep the Muss in Christmas."  -- Michael R. Singer


To this day I still don't know if it was just a coincidence or if
for some arcane reason I'd been guided to this particular
timeline and this particular era.  I do know that at first I
didn't think anything was amiss.  The ancient Middle East?  Oh
yeah, I'd done that gig before, only in the Bronze Age, not the
Iron Age.  Hell, in one timeline I'd pretty much co-founded the
nation I'd landed in this time, so really, no surprises here.  
Sure, the Romans were a pain, but that was par for the course in
the era.  I didn't bother them and they didn't bother me, and for
the most part we both found that arrangement satisfactory.

I'd fallen in with the extended household of a wealthy farmer who
lived a half-mile outside the small town of Beit Lechem, near the
north edge of the Roman province of Judaea.  I'd arrived in the
late spring, and at that time of year the easiest job to get in
an Iron Age culture was field hand; despite my odd looks I was
taken on quickly.  (A 173-cm blond in 1st-century Palestine?  You
betcha I looked like an alien creature to those folks -- just
like I did to the Midianites a thousand and some years earlier
and oh-so-many timelines away.)  Old Avram was a good and honest
man who paid well for the time and place, and I did my best to
earn my perutahs.

(What's a perutah?  Oh, that's a little bronze coin that was the
most common currency in Judaea while I was there, issued by
whichever one of the Herods was on the throne at the time.  Gods
know I could never keep'em straight as a kid in Sunday School,
let alone living under one.)

Anyway, I'm not averse to the kind of physical labor an Iron Age
farm requires of its workers.  I was in good shape and to be
absolutely honest stronger than all but the burliest of Avram's
sons and farmhands (the numbers of which overlapped by a large
amount).  I did my fair share and then some, and in return I had
good food, a reasonably comfortable bedroll, and some rough but
enjoyable company for as long as I wanted it.

Sure as hell beat living in a cave in a post-human wasteland, let
me tell you.  

Some months later, when the harvest ended, Avram took me aside
and told me I was welcome to spend the winter with them.  Lacking
a pressing appointment elsewhere in the Roman Empire, and because
I liked old Avram and his family, I took him up on the offer.  I
knew the combination of my *very* foreign looks plus the strange
but recognizable strain of Judaism that I practiced in order to
fit in (two millennia in the making!) puzzled and intrigued the
old man, and he'd made half-serious jokes about me coming from
one of the Lost Tribes.  I suspected that in addition to keeping
a good farmhand around for the next season, he planned on
interrogating me thoroughly until he found out for sure one way
or the other -- and offering me room and board through the winter
was the best way to ensure his research project didn't wander on
down the road before he satisfied his curiosity.

So I ended up staying with Avram's family well past the time the
other workers returned to theirs.  I started out bunking in the
barn as I had during the harvest proper, but that changed after I
joined the family for Sukkoth.  When the booth came down off the
roof of the house my pallet was moved indoors with everyone else's
and all my offers to return to the barn were rebuffed.  Avram's
wife Tova threatened me with an iron ladle when I suggested it
one too many times, at which point I gave up and accepted my
promotion to "family member" with a smile.

Winter with Avram's family passed quickly enough.  Folks who've
only lived in an industrial, technological civilization don't
realize how much work went into living (let alone living *well*)
in the Iron Age.  We didn't lounge around looking at snow falling
on the fields, drinking mulled wine -- we *toiled*, doing almost
as much work keeping the farm and family going through the winter
as we did in the warmer months.  Not that it got cold, or snowed,
in our little corner of the Empire, but that just made the work a
bit easier.

Another thing future folks don't quite grasp, either:  just how
slow communications traveled, too.  We'd been noticing and
commenting on the increase in traffic to and from Beit Lechem for
something close to six weeks before we finally heard about some
Roman decree about a census and taxes requiring Judaeans to
register with officials in whatever town their family originally
came from.  Avram's line had been in the Beit Lechem vicinity for
longer than anyone could remember, fortunately, and it took just
a day's travel, round-trip, for him to take care of his
obligations to Rome.  And because I was basically an undocumented
alien, he claimed me as one of his nephews and covered *my*
obligations, as well.  The man was a saint.

As winter transitioned into spring, the farm started gearing up
for the planting season -- and the lambing.  A fair amount of Old
Avram's wealth was in his massive flocks of sheep, and after
taking special care of the pregnant ewes for the previous four or
five months, it was finally coming up on the lambing.  The
weather had improved to the point where the nights were no longer
particularly chilly, and that was the sign that we -- by which I
meant all the farmhands -- had to start camping out in the fields
overnight.  

Why?  Because lambing is a tricky business, and sometimes you
can't just let nature take its course.  If the birth goes badly,
you can lose both the lamb *and* the ewe, and even if you don't
look at it from an economic point of view, that's a loss you don't
want to take.  Those same ewes (and their lambs) were also primo
targets for the various predators that prowled the countryside.
So it was necessary to basically set up a camp right in the
middle of the flocks and set up a series of watches so that
someone would always be awake to hear the sounds of a distressed
ewe (or five) -- or a howling wolf -- in the middle of the night.  

Yeah.  We were shepherds, out in the country, keeping watch over
our flocks by night.  If I hadn't already been working every
*other* part of the farm for most of a year by that point, that
would have been my first clue.

The light show one late April evening would have been another,
but I don't think I'd've needed any more clues after that.

                            * * *

As I watched the sky grow dark once again, I pursed my lips for a
moment.  "Well," I muttered, "I wasn't expecting the accounts to
have been *quite* so literal."

Yeah.  Angels, host of, one each.  Singing, lights, wings, halos,
you name it -- all there.  The announcement was a little longer
than the written record had it, though.  Even allowing for the
inevitable translation issues, it was pretty obvious the
traditional rendering had paraphrased a fair bit.

It hadn't quite caught the attitude, either.  This band of angels
wasn't exactly doing a worshipful alleluia, solemnly informing
the world (via two dozen sleep-deprived animal husbandry experts)
of God's grace and glory and all that.  Instead, it looked and
sounded more like a band of celestial fratboys throwing a
going-away party for a buddy who was already at the airport.  It
was, I reflected, perhaps the least dignified group of Celestial
types I had seen since the night Urd and Bacchus decided to do a
pub crawl through downtown Nekomi.

But to the degree that the incident had been documented in the
Bible, the account was accurate.

Just ... incomplete.

All around me, my "cousins" and the odd temporary hand were
getting up off the ground, where they had fallen to their knees
(or, in some cases, faces) when things got really sparkly.  I
looked them over, stifled a chuckle, and said, "Off to Beit Lechem,
I guess."

We decided to make the pilgrimage in several groups -- Avram
would have our hides if we lost any of the ewes or lambs because
we'd deserted our posts en masse, after all.  (And there was
nothing I could spot in the sky which would fit the loose
criteria for a "star" to lead the Wise Men, so I figured we had
a few days at least before the happy family would head back to
Nazareth.)  

A half-dozen of us would head out to Beit Lechem right away, find
the newly-incarnated savior and his family, pay our respects, and
report back to the rest.  Then, for the next few nights, another
half-dozen at a time would trot into town, take a gander at the
kid, and hightail it back to the fields before dawn.

I made sure I was in the first group, if only because I had
inside info *and* I was the only one not completely dazed by the
experience.  (I don't know what those angels had been passing
about, but it'd given my "cousins" a contact high like you
wouldn't believe.)

Finding the inn wouldn't be hard.  There was only one place that
put up travelers in Beit Lechem.  (It was *that* small -- you could
trade Beit Lechem for a one-horse town and have to give back a
Shetland pony as change.)  And sure enough, it was packed to the
gills.  I didn't even bother to check inside with the innkeeper,
I just led our little group around back to the stables.

Another detail not in the "official" accounts:  The *stable* was
packed, too, and not just with animals.  The Holy Family did have
an entire stall to themselves, though.  It had just enough room
for two adults to lay down in, which explains why they used the
manger as an improvised cradle -- they would've crushed the kid
if they'd laid him between them.  (And unlike the floor of the
stall, it was guaranteed to be clean -- or at least cleanish --
straw.)

Given the hour, Yosef was understandably a bit put out by the
small band of weirdos who insisted on waking him and the missus
up and looking at their newborn.  But we mentioned the light show,
and the winged fratboys, and Miriam's eyes got real wide for a
moment before she laid her hand on her husband's arm and calmed
him down.  (Some of the other folks staying in the stable were
*also* put out by our arrival, but I calmed them down through
somewhat different methods.)

Miriam lifted the kid out of the manger.  He was wrapped up in an
old shawl, a colorful thing quite unlike the white mummy
wrappings you see in any depiction of the Nativity.  It made him
look like a rainbow-colored caterpillar.  What I could see of him
was like any other newborn I'd ever seen -- red, wrinkly and
vaguely unfinished-looking; the only saving grace was that he
wasn't crying or screaming.  As little Yeshua blinked sleepily in
the lantern light, Miriam unwrapped him enough to bare his arms,
and I took the moment to slip into mage sight.

Yup.  Triple helix in the soul.  There was definitely Someone
Celestial in there.

While my "cousins" muddled about I took the lead and approached
the little family, after first taking Dawid out into the street
and cuffing him in the ear to get him to behave.  (You couldn't
take Dawid *anywhere*.)  I bowed to both mother and father, and
then knelt down in front of where Miriam held the boy in her lap.  
Surprisingly, the baby had handled the entire parade with a
strange, quiet dignity.

I cupped the child's face in my hand and looked into his eyes --
eyes that very definitely were too wise for an ordinary newborn.
"Hey there, kiddo," I said in twentieth-century English.  "I
don't know which one of you is in there, but I can't imagine that
you'd be ignorant of the story you've just inserted yourself
into.  Every Earth I've visited it's played out pretty much the
same, far as I can tell."

I shook my head.  "So you've got to know already what you've set
yourself up for, and even if you're just timesharing a typical
avatar, it's still not going to be fun when you reach the end.
And if you've put *all* of yourself inside that baby, well..."  I
trailed off and bit my lip.  While I did so, the infant reached
up and wrapped his chubby fingers around my thumb.  "Either way,
Whoever You Are, you've got my respect -- especially if it's been
you in all those other universes as well.  I suppose that'll have
to be my gift -- damned few gods have my respect, so it ought to
be worth something just for its rarity."  I smiled to make it
clear I was mocking myself and not him.

"Some advice, too, though I doubt you need it," I added.  "Take
the time to enjoy being a kid, for as long as you can get away
with it.  Try to complete a masterwork as a carpenter before you
have to start your ministry.  And see if you can't give Judas a
break this time around.  The poor schmuck gets set up and used
every damned time you do this -- can't you come up with a
different way to move into the endgame that won't destroy him in
the process?"

I furrowed my brow with a moment's thought.  "I guess that's it.
I should let the others have a look at you.  Thanks for listening
to me.  Merry Christmas, kiddo, and happy birthday."  I tried to
pull away, but suddenly the baby's grip on my thumb was like
iron, and I was frozen in place.

*You are welcome, Douglas Sangnoir, once called Aharon the
brother of Moses, and a thousand other names as well.*  The words
formed in my mind without a sound being emitted by the
unnaturally solemn child before me.  *And thank you for your
wishes, and those of your companions.*

"Um," I said, taken aback, and the baby smiled.  Around us, the
moment seemed to be frozen in time.

*I will share a secret with you, Douglas Sangnoir.  Judas is,
like I, one of the Elohim.  We have taken these roles in turns
through the many universes; in this one I am Yeshua ben Yosef,
but in the next I shall be Yehuda ben Avraham of the Sicarii and
my brother shall be Yeshua.  Fear not for the fate of Yehuda,
then, for we both do these things of our free will and with a
purpose.*  The baby's eyes twinkled.  *This is not to say we
adhere slavishly to a set script, though.*

I chuckled.  "Maybe he can take the place of Paul this time
around -- have him repent betraying you, write a major gospel,
and then travel the Middle East building the Church for you."  I
frowned as a thought struck me.  "Just let him strip out the
misogynism and the other stuff that's caused trouble over the
centuries...  If you're at all as beneficent as you want us to
think you are, I'd think you'd want a better legacy than what's
left by the end of the twentieth century."

A light seemed to flare in the child's eyes, and even though his
placid expression didn't change a whit, I got the feeling that
I'd finally annoyed him. *You speak from your own biases, Douglas
Sangnoir,* he said, and the tone carried by his mental "voice"
confirmed my suspicion -- yup, I might not have actually angered
him, but he *was* irritated at me.  Oh, well...  *The time and
place of your origin is not the goal, but a brief milepost
flickering by on the long path to that goal.  The actions that my
brother and I take in each of these lifetimes bear fruit in eras
so far distant that from their perspective, this time and yours
are indistinguishable.*

"Playing pool with history," I growled.  "I suppose I can
understand that.  I just wish fewer people ended up behind the
8-ball."

The annoyance in the mental voice disappeared.  *Because you ask
nothing for yourself, and cared for the fate of a man whom untold
billions in untold timelines have reviled for centuries, my
brother and I will see what we may do.  Our goal is of immense
importance, and we will not see it lost for anything, but... this
time, perhaps, we will see how much we can change without
threatening the outcome we *must* have.*

"Sounds like this isn't some game for you, unlike the things I've
seen so many gods doing with mortals," I offered thoughtfully.

*Indeed, Douglas Sangnoir.  Though the lives we live in these
many worlds are for the most part good and enjoyable ones, we
would not ceaselessly take on the pain and blood of their endings
if it were not a matter of importance whose magnitude approaches
the ineffable.  We are not *all* the spoiled children you believe
us to be, as you should well know by now, and our goal benefits
mortals as much as the Elohim.*

Then the world started moving again and, to Miriam's surprise,
the baby smiled and shrugged.  *Still, I must admit, it's a hell
of a way to make a living.*

------------------------------------

This work of fiction is copyright (C) 2013, Robert M. Schroeck,
and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

"Douglas Q. Sangnoir," "Looney Toons", "The Loon" and any
representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Robert
M. Schroeck.

Other Drunkard's Walk stories can be found at:

        http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dwmain.shtml

The Drunkard's Walk discussion forums are open for those who wish
to trade thoughts and comments with other readers, as well as
with the author:

       http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/index.php

C&C gratefully accepted.
 
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Just a thought... the Wormverse is basically completely horked over in five (or more) different ways.  It's in a bad enough position that adding, say, almost any of the Demon Princes from In Nomine (or, indeed, all of them, all at once) would actually serve to make the setting *less* bleak (or at least less likely to end with the snuffing out of all human life).  See what you can come up with in terms of ridiculously powerful, deeply evil/villainous/whatever characters such that adding them to the wormverse could only be a good thing.

Force Impulse Strike Technique

• Type: Attack (melee, physical/kinetic)
  
• MP cost: 1 per 1 point of damage, minus the caster's Magic score
  
• Duration: Instant
  
• Accuracy: +1
  
• Effect: Hits every location on every target within 2.5m (BR 1 hex) of the impact point (user not included) and inflicts double knockback for the amount of damage inflicted (see tables, MZ p100)
  
• Effect of higher Skill level: Stunt slots, can be used to multi-attack.
  
• Stunt effects (may be combined):
  • Barret Knuckle: works inside an Anti-Magic Field
    
  • Increase Blast Radius: +5m (BR +1 hex) per stunt slot, +1 MP per 5m
    
  • Broken Ground: targets are buried in rubble, immobilizing them by trapping one or two (if made at WA +0) of their limbs. Escape DC = damage x3, can be stacked to trap more limbs in a single attack. MP x1.5
    
    
  • double MP cost:
    • Armor Piercing: double damage for the purpose of penetrating armor
      
    • Disruptor: double damage for the purpose of penetrating force fields
      
    • Shock Only: no physical damage, but stuns the target (or pilot if the target is a vehicle) for a turn if damage equals or exceeds 10+target BOD+d10, and for an additional turn for each level of success beyond 10. Ignores standard armor, but Alpha and Beta refined armor can subtract 1/2 their SP and Gamma armor or force fields work normally.
      
    • Lingering Pain: Damage over time ala Incendiary ammunition, ie one-half the previous round's damage on each subsequent round. Ex: Hit with a 5h FIST, the target takes full damage, then the next round Lingering Pain causes 5/2=2.5 rounded to 3h, then on the third round 3/2 = 1.5 rounded to 2h, then 2/2=1h, and finally 1/2 = .5 rounded to 1h before wearing off.
      
  • Shock Added: As Shock Only, but does normal damage as well as the shock effect. MP x3
    

Digital Trends: Boring gardens don’t stand a chance against flower seeds you plant with a shotgun

So...

Listen up, you primitive screwheads! This... is my Bloomstick!
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

So, Eva 3.0 is finally making its way (officially) across the Pacific.  Here's the listings for the theaters that will be screening the movie in the US.  (Canadian theaters will be announced at a later date.)
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.