Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Serik: Civil war, Conspiracies, and stuff. (Open)

((I'l l fill it out as soon as I can, no worries! And it's okay if you take a while, I know I sometimes take af ew days to fill things out. Been busy lately, lots of interviews and the like. Also would you like me to use the same character or should I think up a new alien for this?))

Alert. Well , at least he was as careful as he was distrustful. That made her more at ease, now that she was no longer considering them a threat, she could look at their strengths for what they were. She tried to seem a bit more welcoming, as hard as that was for her, and put on a smile for him. It might have seemed a bit forced, but hey! She was trying.

"No, no I just wanted to check up on you and see how things are over here." she paused for a moment as she peered around the bridge, stepping forward a little. "It's , uh , nice and comfortable up here. Beats our places, all dark and neony." she began, stopping for a moment as she noticed she was going on about herself and her people again.

"So, you find the ship life comfortable? I understand that even with a girl as...multi-talented as your own, raising a child and living on a ship like this can be something hard to get used to. I was born on a ship..." she ran a hand over the side of one of the consoles, before turning to him "No offence of course, this thing is impressive. And you pilot it well. I owe you my life for saving me back there, I would've been space dust by now."

Her crest was erecting slowly, a subtle yet silly looking thing to behold, yet she couldn't help it. Ugh. She was feeling nervous. That was never a good thing. Slaughter never made her nervous, so why is smalltalk doing this to her?

Antero looked at Saka for a while before he spoke. "Well, these are bad times. People ought to look after one another. God knows the government can't." He found a spot on the floor to stare at while he considered his words carefully. However, the next one to speak wasn't him or Saka.

"I believe your gratitude, Saka, is mutual." Kaya peeked around the corner into the bridge. "You sure gave those bounty hunters a fright. Without your assistance and... intimidation, we would likely have been captured."

Antero sighed. "Hello, Batali." The little girl's wording revealed who was really in control.

His daughter made an indignant sound. "Not Batali. Kaya. Don't you recognize your own daughter?"

"Don't lie to me," he said sternly. "That's not how my daughter talks."

"Fine, don't believe me." She stuck her tongue out and left.

"I can't stand it," Antero muttered as soon as she was gone, more to himself than to Saka. "That thing, living in her brain. I swear, if I ever get my hands on the people who did this to her..." He trailed off, turning his chair around to face his controls again. "I'm sorry. Our war with Scio Kio isn't your problem."

The gate was finally in view. It didn't take long to reach it, and when he opened a comm link, he was relieved to find that it was automated. That meant less contact with other people, which meant less of a chance of detection. All he had to do was submit a - falsified - set of credentials. As far as the gate knew, they were still Carn Boler and Arkhew, two Chipi running a family-operated transport business. Within minutes, the gate was charged, and Antero steered his small frigate through the opening. A flash of light, and they had traveled three light years, to Schlora.

Meanwhile, three light years away, back in the Tara system, a small dialog box popped up on a computer screen. The Farbian who was playing a game read the contents and smiled.

"Find something?" Kiri asked, noticing Yale's pleased expression.

"Spy crawler got a hit."

((Just in case you missed it (which you might have since I derp edited it in ) I was wondering if you think I should keep the same alien I'm using here or make a new one more suitable for that roleplay.))

Batali...Kaya. The whole thing made her brain hurt. On one hand, it was wrong to her. No one should ever tamper with the mind of a child. A titanic amount of hypocrisy coming from a member of a race that instigated brainwashing it's masses from their first seconds in the world. But on the other hand, it made her stronger as a result, more useful to her father. Yet, it wasn't her race, so was this really just?
She simply smiled, giving her a single nod and replied confidently. "And if I had my chance to get to them, they'd never have bothered you again. Pleased I could use my skills for some good."
Then the child left. It made Saka frown openly from the way she acted. It was almost as if both personalities were fusing together. She turned her gaze back towards Antero, listening to his grief. Once again, it struck her close to home. Almost cursing herself for doing it, she stepped foward towards the man as he would approach the gate, attempting to place a hand upon his shoulder and give it a firm squeeze.

"It is now. No, not because you took me in, but because of what they have done. I already abhor nakra like them, but addling the mind of a child for their own benefit to the point where it causes pain to her family is not just wrong to me but unforgivable. And if it means putting them in their place? I'll fight your way, Antero. For you and your daughter."
And with that, off they went. Into the gate with the power of false credentials and travelling at faster then light speeds to their destination. These gates were interesting pieces of technology to her. Sure, they were inferior to her own trans-locative warp engines, but still their size facilitated an easier time for larger vessels, which had quite a few restrictions imposed upon them for her people.

Now her ship was in pieces. Her home was far behind. And she was waging someone else's war. But at least it was her choice. And at least she was going to enjoy herself doing it. Little did she know that Tweedle K and Tweedle Y were already planning their next re-union.

((I'm back! Long post ahead! Oh, and sorry about this, but Outrun Time is an exclusively human RP. I'm aiming for hard sci-fi, so that means justifying aliens would be difficult to say the least. The other player who has shown some interest is a cyborg, though. (I was tentative about allowing it, but I want to make sure people can create a character they enjoy playing)))

Schlora was a shithole.

Antero hadn't planned to land on the planet, but over the past few days he had been noticing a drop in power. As it had turned out, Scio Kio had landed a few low-velocity slugs on their ship as Antero and Kaya escaped from their research facility, heavily damaging many of their solar panels. The panels had been hanging on, but the power draw from their speedy flight from the two bounty hunters had been more than it could bear. If they lost any more panels, their low-burn drive wouldn't even be able to hit escape velocity.

There was a military service dock in orbit around the planet - several, actually, but for obvious reasons, they couldn't use them. So it was with a great deal of caution that Antero used the last of their Tetrafuel to power the kinshield enough for a landing on the planet. It was terrifying - they were sitting ducks. As he touched down on a municipal service pad, attracting a great deal of attention and surprise from the arrival of a military vessel, he was well aware that until their solar panels were repaired and their Tetrafuel refilled, they couldn't even lift off, let alone run.

Schlora was not a lovely planet. The entire city, founded solely to access the massive supply of precious metals below the surface, had expanded too quickly to develop a middle class. Before long, it was a sprawling mass of identical, supermassive skyscrapers, each housing their own self-contained environments for the poor miners, hardly more than indentured servants, while the rich mining companies lived in mansions, millions of miles away on Whittouch.

After the Schloran rebellion, the skyscrapers were left ungoverned and devolved into gang-ruled deathtraps. The only things that left Schlora were metal, gems, and refugees. The only thing that went in was weapons to feed the constant gang warfare that kept its citizens in a perpetual state of fear.
Needless to say, Antero did not intend to stay here for a second longer than her needed to. He just prayed that the workers repairing the Darasis-Ali would assume that he was a pirate flying a stolen ship, not a disgraced captain fleeing persecution and bearing a massive bounty.

So when Batali approached him and said that she wanted to leave the repair pad and enter one of the superscrapers, Antero was far from pleased.

"Are you kormein insane?!"

Batali shook her head. "Hear me out, Father. We're on the run, and as long as we travel through the Serik Gates, we can be traced."

"So what's the alternative? Hard-burn dead-head to the nearest inhabited system? That's fifteen years, minimum. And what does entering the Schloran deathscrapers have to do with this?"

"There are certain products one can purchase on Schlora, not available in other areas."

"Yeah, like Kalah seeds, guns, and prostitutes."

"And a Serik scrambler. Expensive, but perhaps if we were willing to..." She cleared her throat with a petite cough. "If we could concede some of our possessions, perhaps we could afford one. The anonymity itself would be invaluable."

A Serik scrambler was a simple device, in theory. It could fool the pattern recognition software of a Serik Gate, while simultaneously broadcasting fake, but foolproof credentials that are different for each use. The effect was that a user become obscenely difficult to track. But the devices were expensive, and Batali was suggesting...

"No." Antero said firmly. "No dietan way."

"It's the only way. We want to keep secret, we have to sell the technology aboard your ship."

"Are you insane? It's GMPF technology! That would make this treason! I refuse to commit a capital crime just to squeeze out a little more time to hide." He couldn't do this. He was an officer, sworn to protect and uphold the GRP and serve the Galactic Military Police Force. He couldn't deliver top secret military technology into the hands of separatists and terrorists.

"It's either that, or sell our guest into slavery. Now there's an idea..." She remarked sarcastically.

"I don't think so."

"And I think we hold a vote. We find Saka, we suggest trading some of our weapons and fancy stuff for a scrambler, and she settles the vote."

((Really? Awww. That's kind of a shame. Call me a wierdo but I tend to try to avoid making those. I guess I'm just the exotic-race lover! I'll give it some thought though, I've been able to make exceptions if I get really good character ideas.))

"I would make a lousy slave."

Saka approached them both from behind, her love of evesdroping still clearly very much alive at this point. She'd warmed up to her casual clothing at this point , though admittedly she would trade them in for one of mother's robes anyday. Now she made could weave some fine fabrics. It was a good passtime.

"Experience has thought me that I take orders a little too far and I have a tendency to give very close shaves when I get pushed." Ever the battlehog, as she's always been. "And if you're planning prostitution - I'd warn you. I bite. Hard."

The situation did - in hindsight - seem bleak. They were stuck on this complete craphole of a planet with little options to advance if they didn't make some sort of sacrifice. Saka was apparently keeping her cool, though she too could not undermine the gravity of their situation. They WERE sitting ducks. They'd already attracted a great deal of attention landing there, and in a municipal service pad...well, they were going to attract unsavoury eyes, especially ones that might want to - say - borrow a military ship for their own.

And then there was the moral dilemma. To her it was no dilemma at all. Give the technology to save their hide, they were too far gone anyway at this point. There was no saving that - or Antero's windging. In a way, she respected his concerns. At one point - she too would have been afraid to go against her own side. But that ship had sailed loooong ago. Now they had to make a compromise.

"Look, we are running out of choices. Unless you plan on STEALING one of those scramblers you'll have to trade for it. The only alternative I can suggest is giving people some of my technology. And that would involve ripping that useful stealth tech out of your systems or even giving people parts from my ship. And you've seen what it did to those bounty hunters when it was DISABLED. You try giving that to your rebels." As grim as it seemed, Saka had to be realistic with them, giving Antero a firm nod as she added

"After all you've been through, don't be so sure you'll be accepted...Shadowlord's sake - you've brought me aboard your ship. That's likely a criminal offence on a hundred planets by now."
"Alternatively, you could seek out other ways of earning your coin. There's more to trade then spare parts and people pay way more for good labour then they would for a bulkhead. I'm just saying, we're running out of options at the moment. And I doubt you would like me to go fetch some myself. That may get us in more trouble."

No part of Saka enjoyed being unpleasant at the moment, but there was very little time for anything else. They had to move. And fast. Her instincts told her that she was exposed, and exposure was a surefire way to die. So for her own sake and theirs, they needed to keep up a momentum. Be it by giving either of their ship's parts away or doing a job for the local lowlifes. Even stealing didn't seem too far beneath her at the moment, at least they would get a fast way out of there.

"I can't in good conscience allow this." Antero said. "It'd be turning my back on everything I hold high."

"Father, everything you hold high is currently collaborating with an omnipotent technology company to kill you and play with my brains. When my grey matter is at stake, I don't feel the urge to accept a black and white worldview." Batali leaned back against a crate, fiddling with a small handheld device. "Besides, we don't have to give them weapons. There's plenty of stuff the Schlorans would find useful that the separatists would be hard-pressed to kill us with. Medicine, for example."

"We need that medicine."

"Father, we have enough gunshot-treatment mini-nanite packs to keep a small assault force constantly healthy for months at a time. I think we can spare a few. And on a planet like Schlora, they won't be unneeded."

"Fine, we'll sell the kormein meds!" Antero shouted, with more vehemence than he'd intended. "I'll head down to the planet, bargain for a Serik Scrambler, and-"

"Not a good idea." Kaya interrupted. "No offense, but you'd be an easy target out there on the street. Saka and I will get the scrambler."

"What? That's ridiculous; You're a child!"

"And Saka is a terrifying raptor-lady. We're both excellent shots. If we both bring guns, anybody stupid enough to risk attacking us will be riddled with holes in seconds. Besides, you wouldn't even be able to find someone to buy from; you reek of cop. You really think they'll let you purchase anything even slightly illegal?"

The logic was irrefutable. If Antero went out to buy the scrambler, nobody would sell to him, and he'd likely get himself killed. Better to let the two masters of stealth and murder take care of this.

"Please, Batali." Antero said with a sigh. "Just be careful. Nothing can happen to Kaya."

"I've no intention of dying, Father. Saka and I will be a few hours. Stay with the ship." And with that, she stepped out of the cargo bay, onto the deadly streets of Schlora, carying two small handguns, a hunting knife, and the small grenade she had been tossing between her hands.