I blame Seal's 'Crazy' for these bits.
Don't tell anyone, but I like watching the sakura. Always have, always will.
Beginnings and endings, life and death, and everything in-between ... if you squint, you can see it all in the path of a falling blossom.
Besides, they plain look nice.
They're sort of like Nirvana. The state of mind, not the band.
Eh. I never quite got the big deal about that, to be honest. I mean, what's with the big search and all? Just down a couple of beers and spare some time for thought.
Inner peace is overrated.
I'd have been perfectly willing to give it a try there and then, though, given the circumstances.
"Sorry, could you repeat that? I was lost in thought," I said as I shook off the tangent seeing a Really Damn Big sakura tree standing in the middle of the Asteroid's central dome had thrown me into.
"Ooooh! Such a hip response! I should expect nothing less from someone with references from my Great Rival!"
Apparently, my inattention didn't matter much.
If the sheer incredulity of conversing with what is, for all intents and purposes, a Russian version of Maito Gai has to be experienced to be believed.
Yes. Even the bowl cut.
Especially the bowl cut.
Being given the 'grand tour' of the whole place, with running commentary about the Burning Power Of Youth and how it guided them on their way to the Stars - well, they got _that_ right. My brain, it _burns_ - that occasionally trails off into Russian I can almost, but not quite, follow ...
There and then, I decided that next time I'd have a tape recorder on me.
First Rule - there's gotta be someone out there who'll pay for it, no matter how silly it is.
Besides, I'm always looking for new things to add to my mix of psychological warfare tools.
***
I've never really been a fan of energy weapons. Don't have me try and explain it in a rational way, it's just how things are.
The irony in that being that, had I been one, I could have just done a work-around on the Uncertainty's shield arrays and gotten something at least marginally useful ... or so I liked to think to myself.
Especially when things were going awry with the hardware ... which they were.
Finally, after close to a month of trying out various things, and often just bashing my head against a nearby tree-trunk in frustration, I threw my hands up and gave up on trying to come up with something simple and seamless.
Again, there was irony to be found in this, since as soon as I actually stopped and _thought_ about it the idea went and jumped out at me.
Well, not literally, but it well may have.
I went from sitting next to the tarp that had my project's parts arrayed on it to standing and running off towards the nearest lift-shaft in next to no time flat.
I mean, honestly, when you fight your way against a problem and don't manage to get any headway in despite all indications that it ought to be working just fine thankyou ...
Let's just say that I was feeling pretty damn stupid some four hours later, when the assembled barrel and power delivery circuitry hummed steadily before going *zapp* when I hit the breaker.
You know the saying 'once bitten, twice shy'?
A little while back, when Trigon was stewing and bitching and moaning after his failed attempt at the plant and animal life in the vicinity of Botany Bay, I figured it was time to apply that little tidbit.
Hence, I neutered the Uncertainty of its AI connection and proceeded to work on something that would let me be sure Trigon stayed contained when I wasn't there to contain him.
It took me a bit to kludge together a working model, which was then worked down into a sort of 'security card' - if your average security card were half-an-inch thick and a foot long.
Normally, it wouldn't have worked - see, most Quickened AIs are integrated into a ship's 'wavium at a pretty basic level. Locking them out would entail tearing the guts from the ship, and even that was likely to be little more than an interim measure.
Trigon, though - and this I've managed to figure out via trial and error, mostly - resides in the set of crystalline Solids that govern the original Speed Drive's expansion into energy sails.
As much as he can be said to reside anywhere, really. Still, he hasn't been able to get into the Uncertainty's 'core' Solid.
Anyway, I came back to the test area, lugging my surplus of 'security cards' with me in a duffel.
Then I rigged one to be slotted in-between the powerplant - a 'wavium battery - and a set of hastily acquired hardtech capacitators that became, pound for pound and inch for inch, the heaviest and largest parts of the whole damn design.
What's in a 'card'? Imagine the gutted cross between a microwave and a vacuum tube, and you're pretty close. Most of the actual bulk is due to the heat-sink plates and isolation.
A few hours after that, and having spent most of those in a pleasantly dreamless sleep, I grinned, and fumbled about for the ammunition bin. The target, I ascertained, was still where it had been set up at the beginning of the 'project', the stars beyond this little dome on the surface of the Hidden Asteroid were twinkling merrily, and I felt I had a right to be more than a little smug.
What followed next was ... well, let's say I misjudged the conductivity, and resilience of the coils a little. Just a teensy bit.
The good news was that the target, a six inch thick plate of metalloy I'd had hauled from the Village scrap-cave, was basically one big hole with torn edges. The osmium rounds went right through, digging into the rock beyond, at a ludicrous rate of fire.
The bad news, I groused as I picked myself up from behind a handily placed rock, poking at the tears in the upper layer of my coverall and thanking Eris I'd had enough of a mind to get one of these from the locals - it looked more like a set of bomb disposal gear than a coverall, really - was that I would need to put together a new prototype, since the old one had just suffered a ...
... what do you call it again? Oh. Yeah.
A case of rather terminal malfunction.
***
I have a problem with weapons.
Actually, I have a problem with power, regardless of the form it comes in.
There and then, I was only considering immediates ... later on, though? I hadn't met Scott, then. I hadn't met any of the number of people who'd think I was a decent enough bloke to know how to restrain himself in some situations.
Having power makes me itch to use it. Even considering having it ...
Yeah, it's one of the reasons I play the recluse. Not the only one, not the most important one, but still up there.
There and then, though, sitting in the gloom of redlight in the Uncertainty's cabin and not doing anything ...
My hand was itching to pull a security interlock on the weapons mount, pump the drive for all it was worth, and go _up there_.
Maybe I was getting better on the restrain thing, or I wasn't as bad as I'd semi-convinced myself, but it took a few months and an almost-combat situation to draw that reaction out.
Relays were transmitting clean and clear, and the disco-ball holosphere projected everything in detail into its transparent interior.
Four days ago, Maetel and Quinn got in touch with me regarding something brewing in China. Not surprisingly, they'd surprised me with it, since I still wasn't doing much in the way of keeping up with the news during the time period.
The scope was ... a bit daunting, and even if I had been in touch with reality more than I was at the time, I likely wouldn't have caught wind of the whole thing.
I don't interact with Trekkies all that much, and a fair bit of the contact I do have with them is usually made via the Morden express. Yes, Quinn is a regular with them. No, we don't talk much. Or, at all, really, unless one or the other has a reason to.
That they, or she, wouldn't care to inform me they were about to pull the biggest planned operation in Fendom history ... well, alright, maybe not quite the biggest. Most flashy, though? Very likely.
So, there I was, sitting near the bottom of the Yellow Sea and playing dead like I'd been for the past three days.
Meanwhile, up above and throughout PRC airspace, Fenships and Peoples' Liberation Army fighter jets were giving one-another the dance of a lifetime.
And an unassuming train was using the confusion to ferry a number of cars and several hundred Chinese Fen out of Beijing, picking up speed slowly but surely as the first twitches of authorities seemed to realize something was wrong.
I cracked my neck, my fingers, and chased the desire to go weapons' free away despite the fact that there was a fair chance the Galaxy Express' cover would be blown as soon as it lifted and a friend of mine was likely to find herself under fire.
Nah. That was why _we're_ here, I thought to myself.
And hit the drive toggles.
That's the wonderful thing about the Uncertainty's shields. In most ships, and most cases of drives, they and whatever protections they have are seperate.
In our case, though, the shields _were_ the drive. Under Speed Drive, it was the bubble _around_ the ship - it's structural integrity field and deflector - that moved. Under Acceleration Drive, a few projector relays were added to the array and reconfigured to create a directed gravitational effect ...
Once upon a time, Trigon nearly used them to start the mother of all fires.
If there's ever been the Swiss Army Knife equivalent of force fields, I'd like to think it's what I cobbled together.
This time, though, the ship rose almost hesitantly, as fields interacted and sometimes meshed ... badly ... whereupon I was forced to correct whatever I could and deal with the instability fallout.
Usually, the Acceleration Array doesn't work in combination with the Speed Drive field. Usually, meaning when one is trying to move the ship one way, while the other insisits that, no, it's way is the correct one.
Not pretty.
Then again, I wasn't trying to do that there and then.
My concern was solely with keeping the Uncertainty whole, or at least not very shot up ...
The Chinese had fighters, missiles, guns and ground-based radar arrays. They had ECM. They had ECCM. They also had the Trekkies to deal with, but that didn't stop them from looking.
Eventually, they'd notice the train about to lift off that was a mile or two away from the city by now.
That is, unless they were presented with something that completely threw their sensors ...
My desire to go shooting-mad went under, squashed mercilessly because it was costing focus.
The energy sails flared. I knew they did. I could see the power they were drawing, and it was as much as they pulled during full-out acceleration burn.
On the tactical plot, the red markers of the fighter jets suddenly jinked wildly, before settling back into controlled flight ...
... as tens, dozens, then over a hundred faux signatures snapped into being, and communications bands were flooded with insane crackling.
Trigon had spent the last few months only scarcely entertained, and now he was going to town with his newfound semi-freedom.
All things considered, I thought as I worked the drive field to keep us up and moving, all the more power to him.
On the plot, the faint signature of the Galaxy Express flared as it lifted ... and nobody _cared_.
-Griever
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
Don't tell anyone, but I like watching the sakura. Always have, always will.
Beginnings and endings, life and death, and everything in-between ... if you squint, you can see it all in the path of a falling blossom.
Besides, they plain look nice.
They're sort of like Nirvana. The state of mind, not the band.
Eh. I never quite got the big deal about that, to be honest. I mean, what's with the big search and all? Just down a couple of beers and spare some time for thought.
Inner peace is overrated.
I'd have been perfectly willing to give it a try there and then, though, given the circumstances.
"Sorry, could you repeat that? I was lost in thought," I said as I shook off the tangent seeing a Really Damn Big sakura tree standing in the middle of the Asteroid's central dome had thrown me into.
"Ooooh! Such a hip response! I should expect nothing less from someone with references from my Great Rival!"
Apparently, my inattention didn't matter much.
If the sheer incredulity of conversing with what is, for all intents and purposes, a Russian version of Maito Gai has to be experienced to be believed.
Yes. Even the bowl cut.
Especially the bowl cut.
Being given the 'grand tour' of the whole place, with running commentary about the Burning Power Of Youth and how it guided them on their way to the Stars - well, they got _that_ right. My brain, it _burns_ - that occasionally trails off into Russian I can almost, but not quite, follow ...
There and then, I decided that next time I'd have a tape recorder on me.
First Rule - there's gotta be someone out there who'll pay for it, no matter how silly it is.
Besides, I'm always looking for new things to add to my mix of psychological warfare tools.
***
I've never really been a fan of energy weapons. Don't have me try and explain it in a rational way, it's just how things are.
The irony in that being that, had I been one, I could have just done a work-around on the Uncertainty's shield arrays and gotten something at least marginally useful ... or so I liked to think to myself.
Especially when things were going awry with the hardware ... which they were.
Finally, after close to a month of trying out various things, and often just bashing my head against a nearby tree-trunk in frustration, I threw my hands up and gave up on trying to come up with something simple and seamless.
Again, there was irony to be found in this, since as soon as I actually stopped and _thought_ about it the idea went and jumped out at me.
Well, not literally, but it well may have.
I went from sitting next to the tarp that had my project's parts arrayed on it to standing and running off towards the nearest lift-shaft in next to no time flat.
I mean, honestly, when you fight your way against a problem and don't manage to get any headway in despite all indications that it ought to be working just fine thankyou ...
Let's just say that I was feeling pretty damn stupid some four hours later, when the assembled barrel and power delivery circuitry hummed steadily before going *zapp* when I hit the breaker.
You know the saying 'once bitten, twice shy'?
A little while back, when Trigon was stewing and bitching and moaning after his failed attempt at the plant and animal life in the vicinity of Botany Bay, I figured it was time to apply that little tidbit.
Hence, I neutered the Uncertainty of its AI connection and proceeded to work on something that would let me be sure Trigon stayed contained when I wasn't there to contain him.
It took me a bit to kludge together a working model, which was then worked down into a sort of 'security card' - if your average security card were half-an-inch thick and a foot long.
Normally, it wouldn't have worked - see, most Quickened AIs are integrated into a ship's 'wavium at a pretty basic level. Locking them out would entail tearing the guts from the ship, and even that was likely to be little more than an interim measure.
Trigon, though - and this I've managed to figure out via trial and error, mostly - resides in the set of crystalline Solids that govern the original Speed Drive's expansion into energy sails.
As much as he can be said to reside anywhere, really. Still, he hasn't been able to get into the Uncertainty's 'core' Solid.
Anyway, I came back to the test area, lugging my surplus of 'security cards' with me in a duffel.
Then I rigged one to be slotted in-between the powerplant - a 'wavium battery - and a set of hastily acquired hardtech capacitators that became, pound for pound and inch for inch, the heaviest and largest parts of the whole damn design.
What's in a 'card'? Imagine the gutted cross between a microwave and a vacuum tube, and you're pretty close. Most of the actual bulk is due to the heat-sink plates and isolation.
A few hours after that, and having spent most of those in a pleasantly dreamless sleep, I grinned, and fumbled about for the ammunition bin. The target, I ascertained, was still where it had been set up at the beginning of the 'project', the stars beyond this little dome on the surface of the Hidden Asteroid were twinkling merrily, and I felt I had a right to be more than a little smug.
What followed next was ... well, let's say I misjudged the conductivity, and resilience of the coils a little. Just a teensy bit.
The good news was that the target, a six inch thick plate of metalloy I'd had hauled from the Village scrap-cave, was basically one big hole with torn edges. The osmium rounds went right through, digging into the rock beyond, at a ludicrous rate of fire.
The bad news, I groused as I picked myself up from behind a handily placed rock, poking at the tears in the upper layer of my coverall and thanking Eris I'd had enough of a mind to get one of these from the locals - it looked more like a set of bomb disposal gear than a coverall, really - was that I would need to put together a new prototype, since the old one had just suffered a ...
... what do you call it again? Oh. Yeah.
A case of rather terminal malfunction.
***
I have a problem with weapons.
Actually, I have a problem with power, regardless of the form it comes in.
There and then, I was only considering immediates ... later on, though? I hadn't met Scott, then. I hadn't met any of the number of people who'd think I was a decent enough bloke to know how to restrain himself in some situations.
Having power makes me itch to use it. Even considering having it ...
Yeah, it's one of the reasons I play the recluse. Not the only one, not the most important one, but still up there.
There and then, though, sitting in the gloom of redlight in the Uncertainty's cabin and not doing anything ...
My hand was itching to pull a security interlock on the weapons mount, pump the drive for all it was worth, and go _up there_.
Maybe I was getting better on the restrain thing, or I wasn't as bad as I'd semi-convinced myself, but it took a few months and an almost-combat situation to draw that reaction out.
Relays were transmitting clean and clear, and the disco-ball holosphere projected everything in detail into its transparent interior.
Four days ago, Maetel and Quinn got in touch with me regarding something brewing in China. Not surprisingly, they'd surprised me with it, since I still wasn't doing much in the way of keeping up with the news during the time period.
The scope was ... a bit daunting, and even if I had been in touch with reality more than I was at the time, I likely wouldn't have caught wind of the whole thing.
I don't interact with Trekkies all that much, and a fair bit of the contact I do have with them is usually made via the Morden express. Yes, Quinn is a regular with them. No, we don't talk much. Or, at all, really, unless one or the other has a reason to.
That they, or she, wouldn't care to inform me they were about to pull the biggest planned operation in Fendom history ... well, alright, maybe not quite the biggest. Most flashy, though? Very likely.
So, there I was, sitting near the bottom of the Yellow Sea and playing dead like I'd been for the past three days.
Meanwhile, up above and throughout PRC airspace, Fenships and Peoples' Liberation Army fighter jets were giving one-another the dance of a lifetime.
And an unassuming train was using the confusion to ferry a number of cars and several hundred Chinese Fen out of Beijing, picking up speed slowly but surely as the first twitches of authorities seemed to realize something was wrong.
I cracked my neck, my fingers, and chased the desire to go weapons' free away despite the fact that there was a fair chance the Galaxy Express' cover would be blown as soon as it lifted and a friend of mine was likely to find herself under fire.
Nah. That was why _we're_ here, I thought to myself.
And hit the drive toggles.
That's the wonderful thing about the Uncertainty's shields. In most ships, and most cases of drives, they and whatever protections they have are seperate.
In our case, though, the shields _were_ the drive. Under Speed Drive, it was the bubble _around_ the ship - it's structural integrity field and deflector - that moved. Under Acceleration Drive, a few projector relays were added to the array and reconfigured to create a directed gravitational effect ...
Once upon a time, Trigon nearly used them to start the mother of all fires.
If there's ever been the Swiss Army Knife equivalent of force fields, I'd like to think it's what I cobbled together.
This time, though, the ship rose almost hesitantly, as fields interacted and sometimes meshed ... badly ... whereupon I was forced to correct whatever I could and deal with the instability fallout.
Usually, the Acceleration Array doesn't work in combination with the Speed Drive field. Usually, meaning when one is trying to move the ship one way, while the other insisits that, no, it's way is the correct one.
Not pretty.
Then again, I wasn't trying to do that there and then.
My concern was solely with keeping the Uncertainty whole, or at least not very shot up ...
The Chinese had fighters, missiles, guns and ground-based radar arrays. They had ECM. They had ECCM. They also had the Trekkies to deal with, but that didn't stop them from looking.
Eventually, they'd notice the train about to lift off that was a mile or two away from the city by now.
That is, unless they were presented with something that completely threw their sensors ...
My desire to go shooting-mad went under, squashed mercilessly because it was costing focus.
The energy sails flared. I knew they did. I could see the power they were drawing, and it was as much as they pulled during full-out acceleration burn.
On the tactical plot, the red markers of the fighter jets suddenly jinked wildly, before settling back into controlled flight ...
... as tens, dozens, then over a hundred faux signatures snapped into being, and communications bands were flooded with insane crackling.
Trigon had spent the last few months only scarcely entertained, and now he was going to town with his newfound semi-freedom.
All things considered, I thought as I worked the drive field to keep us up and moving, all the more power to him.
On the plot, the faint signature of the Galaxy Express flared as it lifted ... and nobody _cared_.
-Griever
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