Border Patrol (A Scythian Short)

BrikWars fiction in long-prose form. Trigger warning: Walls of text

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The Shadowscythe
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Border Patrol (A Scythian Short)

Post by The Shadowscythe » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:36 pm

Aloha forum goers - I have here an oddity that doesn't really fit anywhere else in the forum - it be a short story of sorts, based around the Scythian empire. This little piece of fiction, may be the first of many - or a simple one off - I'm not sure which yet, but it found its way into the most appropriate sub-board . . . and it may or may not be part of my story that I'm slowly glueing together in my head for "The Great Scythian Empire" so without further stalling for time . . . I present to you "Border Patrol"

----

//Timescale set
//Mission time +14 days, 3 hours, 27 minutes, 9 seconds and counting
//Scythian "Monarch" Class Battleship "Solaris"
//Scythian task group Atlantia Four - 1x Monarch Class Battleship with 5x Savager Class Frigates as Escorts
//Current Location - Scythian North Rim, "Devator" Star System


Space is awesome, it is also - most notably, empty and boring . . . well, most of the time anyway.

These where the thoughts drifting through the head of lieutenant Safros, as he sat in front of the ever updating Ladar screen.

Asteroid this, meteoroid that, gaseous substances detected here, unusual magnetic fluctuations there, odd planetary bodies here, there and everywhere - and then there's that good old friend to space - the vacuum - vast, huge, perhaps infinite, both completely deadly - and completely boring at the same time.

This had been the fourth hour of his shift as the task group continued its patrol around the north rim worlds. Many would consider this a moot assignment for those who had no interest in, well - anything really. Every Scythian world held its own resident navy that was considerably larger than a simple task group, and countless ships flowed throughout the Scythian empire - no incursion could go for long without being logged - and within moments reserve fleets would be en-route to the source of conflict, so endlessly patrolling the nothing that filled the gaps between the maps of Scythian space was a dead end job, for those with no imagination to do anything else with their existence.

10 years of mandatory military service, that was all it took to gain citizenship - the first 5 for Safros had been filled with basic training, endless days of marksman training, PT, unit drills and mechanical training that every single man woman and child would be indoctrinated into at the age of 18, his second 5 had been filled with officer school - endless technical specifications of every Scythian space asset in the universe, the yield of every laser and warhead, the tonnage and shield strength of every vessel - the layout of known enemy ships - how to map unknown enemy ships - how to best combat the VOL, if need be - how to kill an Immortal. First contact drills (the most current being how to handle the Assyrians - who the Scythian Office Of Naval Intelligence had been spying on for over the last 20 years, and no contact had yet been made, the best option was to let them come to Scythia - rather than the other way around), combat strategies and three dimensional combat drills.

All of this, every piece of knowledge and training - led to a lieutenants rank, sat in front of a rotating Ladar display - watching nothing.

Sometimes life really fucking sucks? Doesn't it?

His concentration waning, Safros peered up for a moment around the bridge - the rest of the command crew going about their duties on their various stations. His attention, as with every time his eyes wandered from his station - fell onto the ships Pilot, a young woman by the name of Cylen . . . to many, she wouldn't be much above average - but when your trapped in deep space, in a fairly small room with little else to look at, you find that your eyes often wander, and as per usual they fell down to the sight of her backsi-

It was at that point, he heard the beep.

Usually on a starship bridge - you where surrounded by various "boops", "beeps" and even the occasional "Bloop's" that are the general running of the ship, every so often the ships intercom would buzz, or someone would dare to speak aloud. Usually these noises would be harmless, innocuous - a plasma overheat in section 13-b, a laser lense would need re-alignment in one of the secondary laser cannons or some usual drone from the ship.

This beep however, was different - this beep was coming from his console, the console he was too busy ignoring in the favour of the pilots, rear. His head turned back quickly - and his eyes darted.

//INBOUND JUMP DETECTED
//DANGER CLOSE PROXIMITY
//VESSEL TONNAGE UNKNOWN - SUGGESTS SUPER-DREADNOUGHT CLASS VESSEL
//WARNING
//EVASIVE ACTION REQUIRED


Moments later, the bridge erupted into life - klaxons wailed - the crew startled into action and Safros was left in front of a monitor that for all intents and purposes was predicting incoming doom. The Captain came running onto the deck, demanding status updates - and blood red holograms ignited the air with three dimensional Ladar images, inbound and outbound vectors - and the jump point that was soon to share the same space as the Solaris.

At least Life wasn't boring any more
, the sarcastic side of his mind suggested.
-- WARNINK -- LINK BELOW IZ KNOWN TO CAUZE HEMMORAGE --
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I WARNED YOU, DIDN'T I WARN YOU?! BLAME RAYHAWK DAMNIT.
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Post by fredde » Thu Apr 01, 2010 8:25 am

really nice writing :D

i hope you continue this story!
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Post by Lego_scout » Sat Apr 24, 2010 2:36 pm

More more moooore!
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Post by Warhead » Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:49 pm

I haven't seen Shadowscythe for a while :(

He has a new RL mini-fig family addition so probably pretty busy right now. And I agree, more!
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Post by The Shadowscythe » Wed May 19, 2010 8:05 am

Space itself boiled. Any decent scientist could tell you that space itself boiling is an illusion, a mere habit of the universe - the reaction to a mass moving faster than the speed of light that creates various forms of "exit" radiation that dilates momentarily before an objects arrival.

However, space was boiling everywhere, the Solaris was surrounded by a fresh space/time event that was the precursor to its destruction. People ran everywhere - emergency klaxons wailed, the Captain barked orders to and fro and Safros was left dumbstruck in front of his console.

"GIVE ME AN INCOMING VECTOR!"

"VESSEL IS SOME FORM OF SUPER-DREADNAUGHT, ARRIVAL iN-"

"ENGINES GIVE ME FULL REVERSE THRUST, PREPARE TO FIRE THE DOWNWARDS MANOUVERING THRUSTERS!"

"ARM-"

"INCOMING FTL!"

The Solaris struggled to come to life, increasing its own forward speed and firing its downwards thrusters, the great ship struggled to lift itself out of the oncoming wake - the smaller frigates split away from their defensive formations as space itself split and a vast form emerged from somewhere far distant in the galaxy.

Then, the lights dimmed suddenly, with a resounding boom - and everything shook. Artificial gravity wavered and then de-activated, throwing objects and people on random vectors around the ship, off of desks, chairs and bulkheads. On the bridge itself an un-prepared deck hand was caught in the middle of a frantic dash with a holo-screen in hand. She gasped as her stride launched her off the deck, and then let out a short panicked yelp as she departed from the ground. Moments later she hit the ceiling bulkhead with a sickening crunch and then scraped the ceiling with her temple, her head stuck at a sickening 90 degree angle backwards.

Safros turned his eyes away, struggling to keep his cool as bile rose in his throat, she had been killed cold without a shot fired - he didn't even know her name, and later - her cause of death would be put down to simple "Mechanical malfunction" he knew space travel could be dangerous, but that had simply been pointless - a life snuffed out in a moment.

"Police the Corporals body later" The Captain snapped out to the bridge officers, breaking the silence "Lieutenant Safros - Give me anything you have on that ship"

Safros's eyes darted back to his monitor, everything was on him as his fingers darted over the screen, struggling to re-activate computer systems and sensors. A moment later power returned and the screen burst into glorious life.

//VESSEL IDENTIFIED
//BRITANIAN "CANTERBURY" CLASS SUPER-DREADNOUGHT
//VESSEL IDENTIFIED AS "CHELSEA SMILE"
//BRITANIAN 19th FLEET OF NEW PORTSMOUTH


Safros turned back to the Captain and began "Sir, we have a reading, I'm not sure you're going to make of this . . . "
-- WARNINK -- LINK BELOW IZ KNOWN TO CAUZE HEMMORAGE --
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I WARNED YOU, DIDN'T I WARN YOU?! BLAME RAYHAWK DAMNIT.
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Post by Warhead » Thu May 20, 2010 12:21 am

Silverdream wrote:Britannian has two "n"s doesn't it?
He's a Brit so he can do what he likes you rebellious North American (Canuck or Yank?) traitor.

Also, what happens next?
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Post by Massam » Thu May 20, 2010 1:56 am

Aren't you Scottish?
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Post by Arkbrik » Thu May 20, 2010 2:11 am

Inb4britrage

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Post by Warhead » Thu May 20, 2010 5:20 am

Yup, but it's complicated. I'm Scottish but I'm still a Brit, it's a confusion of contradictions that keeps all us oppressed commonwealth types in check. It'd work better if we didn't get used so badly all the time... and as for the English in the coming world cup, argh! If I hear one more fuckin' advert extolling the glorious virtues of those dead beat hacks (who are still regrettably better than ours who didn't even qualify) I'll invade England myself. :evil: Español for the cup! :D
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Post by Arkbrik » Thu May 20, 2010 5:14 pm

Glasgow and Edinburgh hate each other, but they unite with the rest of Scotland to hate England. Britain unites to hate the other European countries, but unites with those countries to hate USA.

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Post by Warhead » Thu May 20, 2010 5:42 pm

Hates a strong word. More sort of jealously resent with a hint of piss take.
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Post by Massam » Thu May 20, 2010 11:05 pm

Can I join you in overthrowing the brits? I am mostly scottish...
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Post by Warhead » Thu May 20, 2010 11:13 pm

Eh?.. Yeah, sure, I guess... It's funny but from the amount of people that can trace their roots to Scotland I think most people in the world are Scottish. Seemingly while most other peoples ancestors were away either building stuff or making history my ancestors have been having it away with everyone else's wife while they were busy and making babies. That's why there are so many red headed kids about the place I guess.

Ok, I've instigated a one step plan to overthrow the Government.

1) Drink beer.

We'll come up with another stage when the beers done.
Last edited by Warhead on Fri May 21, 2010 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Massam » Fri May 21, 2010 12:20 am

I'm not red-headed though, that's were the German comes in. Not sure what the Russian is doing for me...
2. Make the government drink beers too?
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Post by Elmagnifico » Fri May 21, 2010 6:41 am

That implies sharing the beer with the government.
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