short bit to get away from my most immediate focus of blood, gore, and a kitsune going berserk and whaling on everything.
Australia likes us. I think. Well, they have yet to toss us out on our asses, and despite Trigon's occasional antics - luckily, none of them as serious as Botany Bay had been - the Uncertainty hasn't been banned from docking or airspace yet.
They may not be entirely at ease with Handwavium, but they've got people outside of the trade zones beat by leaps and bounds when it comes to that. Still, if you want to putter around with 'wavetech and raw Handwavium outside of either the Outback or a Sydney International Spaceport's rented hangar, the place to go is Tasmania.
As a point of immediate interest to me, though, it also happened to be the place that was home to one of the best Fen-run hospitals dirtside.
And I needed to get myself looked at. Better safe than sorry, after all.
By the time I actually got there, the graze I hadn't even noticed until the entire pirate episode was over and done with and I was in the process of bleeding on myself, was mostly under control. Synthskin patches weren't cure-alls, but they did well enough with something that was basically a glorified flesh wound. The only thing left was to get something for the bruising I got as a result of the fall.
A few days after that, and still wincing at some of the aftereffects - my back was mostly an odd shade of mottled yellow by then, and I was sleeping on my stomach most of the time - I made my way out of the gravity well.
Miraculously, Trigon didn't prove to be too much trouble during that time. Possibly, it had something to do with the fact that he'd gotten frontline seats to a show that included me getting shot and people getting killed. I wasn't about to investigate too closely, though, opting to try and not look a gift horse in the mouth.
So, yeah, other than a getting the feel of cold steel at my throat introduced to me a few years prior to the Wave, that was the only time my life had been in direct danger.
Not counting taking a sailboat hooked up to a Solid into orbit on a grunt and a prayer, and a few encounters with 'danelaw authorities in the early years' - before immediate family used me as an excuse to visit extended relatives in Aussie-land at Christmas.
But that was in another country.
This one, though?
Yeah, I'd been careless. But if there was one thing I'd come to realize in the course of this life'o'mine, it's that getting careless like that once means it could very well happen again.
Like they say, hindsight is almost always 20/20. And over-reacting is pretty much normal when faced with stress.
As is a desire to be able to defend oneself.
Oh, shields, 'gooped hull, and so on and so forth were all well and good ...
... but I've always had an opinion a bit along the lines of the Old Testament about things like this, despite not being religious in the slightest.
A few weeks later I'd squared off a month or two of time in my calendar, and the gears were put into motion.
I was heading out towards the Belt, a bit of a side-job, and more than a month's time of research on the fine art of breaking stuff.
tbc
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Australia likes us. I think. Well, they have yet to toss us out on our asses, and despite Trigon's occasional antics - luckily, none of them as serious as Botany Bay had been - the Uncertainty hasn't been banned from docking or airspace yet.
They may not be entirely at ease with Handwavium, but they've got people outside of the trade zones beat by leaps and bounds when it comes to that. Still, if you want to putter around with 'wavetech and raw Handwavium outside of either the Outback or a Sydney International Spaceport's rented hangar, the place to go is Tasmania.
As a point of immediate interest to me, though, it also happened to be the place that was home to one of the best Fen-run hospitals dirtside.
And I needed to get myself looked at. Better safe than sorry, after all.
By the time I actually got there, the graze I hadn't even noticed until the entire pirate episode was over and done with and I was in the process of bleeding on myself, was mostly under control. Synthskin patches weren't cure-alls, but they did well enough with something that was basically a glorified flesh wound. The only thing left was to get something for the bruising I got as a result of the fall.
A few days after that, and still wincing at some of the aftereffects - my back was mostly an odd shade of mottled yellow by then, and I was sleeping on my stomach most of the time - I made my way out of the gravity well.
Miraculously, Trigon didn't prove to be too much trouble during that time. Possibly, it had something to do with the fact that he'd gotten frontline seats to a show that included me getting shot and people getting killed. I wasn't about to investigate too closely, though, opting to try and not look a gift horse in the mouth.
So, yeah, other than a getting the feel of cold steel at my throat introduced to me a few years prior to the Wave, that was the only time my life had been in direct danger.
Not counting taking a sailboat hooked up to a Solid into orbit on a grunt and a prayer, and a few encounters with 'danelaw authorities in the early years' - before immediate family used me as an excuse to visit extended relatives in Aussie-land at Christmas.
But that was in another country.
This one, though?
Yeah, I'd been careless. But if there was one thing I'd come to realize in the course of this life'o'mine, it's that getting careless like that once means it could very well happen again.
Like they say, hindsight is almost always 20/20. And over-reacting is pretty much normal when faced with stress.
As is a desire to be able to defend oneself.
Oh, shields, 'gooped hull, and so on and so forth were all well and good ...
... but I've always had an opinion a bit along the lines of the Old Testament about things like this, despite not being religious in the slightest.
A few weeks later I'd squared off a month or two of time in my calendar, and the gears were put into motion.
I was heading out towards the Belt, a bit of a side-job, and more than a month's time of research on the fine art of breaking stuff.
tbc
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm