Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
[Story]Rock 'n Roll Time
[Story]Rock 'n Roll Time
#1
Well, I'm not feeling the muse at the moment, but I'll give it a shot. Gotta resurrect this thing from a failed edit eventually.
Rock'n'Roll, Hephaestus Style
The gravplates in the bottom of the pod couldn't entirely dampen the increasingly violent vibration and bouncing we felt as soon as we breached atmosphere. The green glow of the 'go-light' on the top of the pod burnt reassuringly steadily, as we hurtled through the atmosphere of Earth towards a desolate chunk of Africa. I hunched a little deeper into the crash restraints, riding out a particularily harsh jolt.
"All green. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two." V cut off after two, and two seconds later, we slammed into the arid desert of the Libyan highlands. The gravplates burnt out keeping us from squishing, and the sides and lid of the pod blew off. The shattering crash of battle steel plates blowing out and hitting concrete hard enough to dig chunks out was the first sound we heard.
"Status and paint?" I asked V, starting the 'waved ATV I was strapped over. As the motor caught, the ATV's electrical system blew the crash straps. I glanced left and right, Sparky and Raven were running and clean. My helmet chimed as V painted a mark on my HUD, and I hit first and dropped some throttle.
Some throttle became full throttle as I whomped over the edge of the pod-floor onto one of the ramps, breaking traction to avoid half of an Escalade at the foot of the ramp I was on. I rode out the drop over the side of the ramp and slewed the back end around again. As I came straight and level, I surveyed the flat expanse of the.. parking.. lot..
"V, sitrep?" I managed to choke out, completely boggled.
"Operative camoflauge - site _appears_ to be a shopping mall. No civilians."
"Roger!" I shook my head, bemused, and went full throttle again. The mark on my HUD led me through a thin alley between two buildings, and I juked to the side as soon as I cleared the end of it, backing off the speed and letting Sparky pass me, blowing nitrous as he shot towards the garage-type door of the hangar.
Sparky hunched behind his shield and shot towards the door, tucked into the custom armor of his machine's front end, the beefy thousand-cc motor of his extensively modified Yamaha Kodiak Maxx screaming like a banshe in a blender. He hit the door like the proverbial ton of bricks, but the shield worked perfectly, and the door flew off it's hinges and crumpled to the ground behind him.
I was just far enough behind him, with Raven right on my tail, that we hit the remains of the garage door and shot into the air, one on either side of the rapidly slowing Sparky. We screeched to a halt in a nicely dynamic 'action pose' line, and I was clambering off of my 'wheeler when the dust cleared enough to reveal the shape of the Reaver assault shuttle we had come for.
I bailed off and unracked a rifle from the front of my machine, sweeping to clear the entirety of the hangar while Raven bailed off near one of the landing struts, and swarmed up the ladder. Raven double-clicked the radio once she was in, and clicked again when she was clear. When the second double-click hit, I dropped throttle again and blew back outside of the building, following Sparky as he headed through the back alley into the parking area and swung left. Sparky followed one of V's markers into the glass side of a storefront and I followed through the falling glass. Sparky blasted down a set of stairs inside, taking out several internal doors without slowing.
He skidded to a stop in a basement hallway near a steel door. I stopped behind him and bailed off my machine. I kicked the door, nearly ending up on my rear from the bounceback. Sparky stepped in front of me and grasped the handle in one gauntleted hand, twisted slightly, and pushed the door open.
I shook my head as I followed him in, a heavy pack from Sparky's machine in each hand. Inside the room were multiple racks of server equipment, the temperature low and controlled. I dropped the bags and began unpacking, handing bricks to Sparky as he setup each of the racks for detonation.
Sparky finished up the explosives and clapped me on the back on his way out the door, handing me a 'clicker' and mounting his machine. We motored off, and as we cleared the perimeter of the building, I pushed the button. The explosion was almost entirely swallowed up by the structure of the building, but some smoke boiled out of the top.
We motored back towards the hangar, confident and cheerful. As I turned the last corner, a burst of gunfire blew me cleanly out of my saddle. I sprawled on my back and Sparky dodged around me. I got back to my feet stiffly, grateful for the armored suits we'd been in since our insertion. I sprinted towards my machine, cursing and huffing. As I reached it, I pulled the rifle off the front clip and immediately returned fire. My aim sucked, as expected, but I was able to put enough lead downrange to 'keep their heads down'. There were about a dozen scrubby figures in mismatched military-style outfits, with a wide variety of weapons.
I dropped one with a lucky shot, and kept sending three round bursts at them. It didn't appear that any of them had gotten into the hangar, and my fire was keeping them behind what little cover could be found. I glanced at Sparky, and increased my rate of fire, grinning. Bits and pieces of cover and Reavers started flying, and I slacked off the trigger. Sparky had pulled out the Piece of Resistance - a GAU-9 Avenger 'gatling gun' pushing around 1,800 rounds a minute of depleted uranium and HE out the barrels.
The Piece was a GOTH item, there if things had really GOne To Hell, and I think this qualified. The rain of fire coming from Sparky tapered off, and there was no response from the Reavers. I mounted my machine and scooted forward through the position the Reavers had held, scanning side to side with rifle at the ready.
Sparky tailed in behind me, and we bumped back into the hangar, parking our machines and arming their scuttling charges. As we approached the shuttle, Raven came on the radio.
"We're ready, let's get out of here"
We climbed into the assault shuttle and hoofed through the short connecting corridor to the command area. Strapping into the two seats behind Raven's, we double-clicked our radios to signify readiness. Raven rolled one of the controls forward, and we felt the greasy feeling of the ship coming off the ground. She flipped a switch, causing a section of the control panel to change from red to green, and grasped a joystick. Giggling madly, she squeezed a trigger, and the ship shook as cannon fire spewed out the front of it, heavier and thicker than the Piece of Resistance we had abandoned on the 'wheelers. The cannon fire handily shredded the wall in front of us, and Raven rolled another control to its stop.
The ship bolted forward and shot into the sky. We'd pulled it off, with only minor difficulties. Raven threw up a rear view on a screen, and we watched the four wheelers slag themselves behind us as we sped out of the atmosphere. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply
Suggestions...
#2
.....
a famous fen type person?
a new grade of 'wavium?
OH! Brain explosion. How about an actor from a show? Example, They're holding Leonard Nimoy hostage. You must save him on behalf of the Trek contingent. Feel free to change that to a suitable female actor that you might actually want to save, I just couldn't think of one.
-HLW
Reply
Re: [seedbunny]Rock 'n Roll Time
#3
Maybe a prototype Boskonian fighter?

-Rob Kelk
--
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
Reply
Re: [seedbunny]Rock 'n Roll Time
#4
you know, that works - I was seeing this as an earth-bound plot, but there's no reason not to slam it out of an Evil Professor's garage.
that really works.
And GOD am I having some Hoplessley Lost flashbacks, woo!
Edit: Editted original post too much adrenaline in caffeine in system noway can't stop typing OMG badgers WOO.
This was fun to write - I hope it's at least somewhat enjoyable to read. Inspiration goes to The Inspirational Websites thread, Richard Marcinko, and the horrible cackle that the RL Raven gives whenever she 'pulls the trigger' on some real horsepower.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply
Re: [seedbunny]Rock 'n Roll Time
#5
Nitpick - and I hate to do it to such a righteous piece of badassery - but asteroids don't have atmospheres. Or functional gravity. Maybe some nice isolated part of Mars instead?---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Reply
Re: [seedbunny]Rock 'n Roll Time
#6
Wellllll, an asteroid that's been terraformed and 'waved, and..
yeah, I'm grasping. Doesn't work well on Mars, though - no way something's gonna setup a friggin base full of Reavers under the eye of Planitia, not to mention Phobos.
I really wanna keep the atmosphere, so maybe a moon.. any suggestions as to which? I'm thinking Oberon, one of the moons of Uranus. The water ice would lend to quick and dirty Terraforming - life gets easier when there's an atmosphere, at least near your compound, that isn't Hard Vaccum.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply
Re: [seedbunny]Rock 'n Roll Time
#7
Nngh... the solar system is really lousy for this kind of work. The only places with an atmosphere - and aren't *just* atmosphere - are Venus, Earth, Mars and Titan. Venus and Titan are way too extreme for the piece to work as-is (ETA: And Oberon would be as bad or worse than Titan). Earth is too heavily populated (unless you wanna posit some Sekrit Sp00k workshop, complete with diplomatic incident. Just a thought.) which leaves Mars as Hobson's choice.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Reply
Re: [seedbunny]Rock 'n Roll Time
#8
whaddya think of a domed enclosure on Oberon? I can gen up some "friggin KaBoom!" when I pop it on the way down, juggle the landing sequence a bit.
I just.. I can't see how Boskonians would get away with a large enough base to develop their own strikefighter in, on an occupied planet(oid)Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply
Re: [seedbunny]Rock 'n Roll Time
#9
Well, "occupied" is a broad term. Remember, there's maybe a million or so people tops in the entirety of Fenspace, and they tend to cluster around specific areas. The idea of a hidden base somwhere near the Martian south pole doesn't seem too out of place.
A dome habitat would work if you're determined to have this in the outer system, but it'd require an extensive rewrite of the action piece to compensate for the effects of popping the dome. Hurricane-force winds trying to suck your ass out into space as the dome vents, condensation freezing to everything...
It could *work*, and it'd be *cool*, but it'd also need the rewrite.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Reply
Boskonian fighters
#10
I figure that they'd be fairly typical for drug lords and have a mess of MiGs or Messerschmitt replicas. Especially if they're the Russian copies of well-known US planes like the F-4 or F-15. Y'know, for the "space superiority" motif.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll
Reply
Re: Boskonian fighters
#11
I can only see one base design for the Reaver Space Superiority Fighter: a Star Wars X-Wing.
It has the pointed nose that can be armoured into a hull-ram; it's got weapons mounts on the ends of the wings, which means you can't take out all the weapons in one shot; most importantly, it looks like a Warsie ship, which most Fen would expect to see out "on maneuvers"...
It wouldn't look exactly like an X-Wing, but the camoflague aspect alone makes the design worthwhile from a Reaver point of view.

Edit: As for where the story's set, I thought "Earth". It's got the manufacturing base, and many Fen have a huge mental blind-spot when it comes to the mother world...

-Rob Kelk
--
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
Reply
Re: Evil X wing
#12
The trouble with the X-wing design is that the weapons are all out on the wingtips... and hence, if you have a car conversion dead center in your sights, you're going to pot four shots around it. If it dodges just the wrong way, one or maybe two will hit. Sure, fine, they look cool there, but it's highly impractical, and without any real need for air intakes on engines putting them in at the wing roots both reduces the centripetal force of maneuvers twisting them out of alignment and gives a much tighter grouping, for more concentrated effect. If camaflage is a real issue, leave dummies on the wing tips.
I think I'd vote something more like the twin-nose version of the Crusher Joe fighter from the front of the old Aerotech box (from Battletech) - that looked cool and mean and has the ramming prow aspect of it's truly yseful at that scale, and a gun cluster could be mounted centerline low between the noses to keep them out of harm's way.
That said, with the restriction of weapons to things that work IRL and the fact that there's little for them to gain from just blowing stuff up, it might perhaps be better to have the craft being built something more along the lines of the boarding shuttles than a space fighter per se - it's a purpose built craft, and it could easily be said that either the plans were not lost in the raid, or the project was rebuilt from the fragmentary notes that remained - meaning that the craft was slower going into service, and hence still serving a useful purpose with the raid.
- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Reply
Re: Evil X wing
#13
another though in favor of the target base being on Earth, there's a lot of third world countries where a load of cash can get you a large, remote chunk of land away from prying eyes.
Which also keeps you away from the more advanced sensors and airforces of more developed (and more ethical) nations.__________________
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
Reply
Re: Evil X wing
#14
Oh, that's some justification there.
We just moved back to Earth, folks.
More debate on the fighter design!
I'm thinking starfury - and I slag the base computer core after I blast. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply
Re: Evil X wing
#15
oh blargh, it ate it.
might be able to regenerate it from brainmeat this weekend.
grr!Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply
Re: Evil X wing
#16
Interesting! Nifty! Whee! but... Why wouldn't you bring along a way to preserve the four-wheelers? If they're valuable enough that you're slagging them to keep them from the enemy, they're valuable enough that it's worth a bit of effort to save them if you can.
Heck, for that matter, include a tiny, stripped-down speed drive set to "up", hit the button before you go, and pick them up in orbit later.
Also... no one's in the server building? No one's guarding the shuttle? the best response they can come up with doesn't even have waved armor? Mind you, there are certainy plausible reasons for any and/or all of these (it's night time, it's actually only a few full Reavers with local and not-fully-trusted backup, it's so hard to find good help these days, etc.) Also worth noting that *none* of these except the bit about the scuttling occured to me while I was actually reading.
Reply
Re: Evil X wing
#17
Duly noted, scirroco - and agreed!
I lost the original text due to an EZboard barf (I fed it raw HTML and it puked on me), and this was recreated late last night - I have to admit, I pushed it, the Muse was not with me.
I'll drop some edit in soon to explain the lack-of-humans, and scuttling the rides has a logical explanation, but it's not supported or revealed by existing text.
work in progress!Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply
Re: Evil X wing
#18
Quote:
The trouble with the X-wing design is that the weapons are all out on the wingtips... and hence, if you have a car conversion dead center in your sights, you're going to pot four shots around it.
Not necessarily. Most wing-mounted guns are set to converge their shots, so the shots come to a single point at some given distance in front of the fighter. The standard in WW II was 300 yards, some pilots set it in closer, between 200 and 250 yards in the faster fighters, like the P-47 and P-51.
And ranging for the guns is a lot easier in this era of $75 laser rangefinders...
Reply
Weapons Choice
#19
Umm, sorry to nitpick, but you might want to use a different GOTH item. The Avenger is bit large for an atv.
www.answers.com/topic/gau-8-avenger
Reply
Re: Weapons Choice
#20
yeah, at two tons, that's a bit of a load.
will edit this evening if I have time.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)