trans_9 | Battle of Lobnas Sord [Open]

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Battle of Lobnas Sord [Open]

Spaurh had found the sensoriums. At first she'd merely been curious, recreating a few places from memory, trying out the zero-gravity simulation. She'd even dabbled in the piloting program (and found that she was almost as good as she had been out of training). And then she'd recreated her flagship. It had been perfect - almost too perfect. The crew acted like the real crew. Her Chief-of-Staff was so real that she'd almost thought he'd materialized next to her. Of course, that's when that worming little thought had burrowed into her head - what if? Could the battle at the Sord have gone differently? Could she have saved more of her men, her ships?

Despite her rather smug exterior, she honestly had cared for those under her command, even if in some abstract way. And even though she'd achieved a "victory" of sorts at Lobnas, the defeat had still stung. She was supposed to be rebuilding her squadron. Instead she was here. So, at a loss, she'd replayed the battle in the Sensoriums. And then again. And then again. She lost less ships, she lost more ships. But every time the losses had been crippling to her little fleet. And now she was doing it again. The ship rocked from a nearby explosion, "Looks like the enemy is stupid..."

She had made it this far into the fight - the retreat from the Sord, breaking enemy contact. But just as the first time, they were following her. Her crew, her wonderfully trained crew were giving it there all. Reports continued to stream in from the fleet. Another ship had exploded. and then-

"Mine! Incoming!"

"Evasive-"

The ship shuddered for a moment from an impact and a frantic bridge officer begin yelling as information scrolled across his screen, "Impact! Our engines are disabled! Another-"

The ship shuddered underneath her again and then the deck plating seemed to rise to meet her as the entire room turned into blinding white light. It faded out a few moments later, leaving Spaurh standing on an empty bridge. The words "Ship destroyed" burned across the viewscreen. Spaurh bit back a curse and stalked back to her command chair and slumped, sulking. There had to be some way to get a better result out of the fight....

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"Well... it'd be possible to hit something in high orbit with a big enough Engine array, but you'd light up like a Christmas tree to anybody who wasn't asleep at the wheel. And the Migou are good at deorbiting disposable raiders straight on the heads of anybody they feel like. It's not an unlimited supply, but if you light up and don't get out of these real quick... Works sometimes with the right weather conditions, though." For just a moment she was lost in thought, but now she comes back to herself.

She pulls lightly at the officer's uniform she's wearing. The fit seems so weird... though a big part of that is that she's physically different under it, she's sure.

"Well, I'm sure you know more about grand tactics than I do. I don't think I've ever actually set foot on a planet in my life..." Spaurh muses on that for a moment and then shrugs, "Still, it's not like I've ever needed to..."

She eyes Luly's discomfort and laughs, "Something wrong with the uniform? I've never heard anyone complain before."

"It's a different cut from ours... the weight sits all strangely." As if to demonstrate, she tilts her head, eyes going blank... and silently, the uniform she's wearing suddenly transmutes into one of the NEG duty outfits she's familiar with. The basic design is somewhat similar in that it's a bodysuit, but it's obviously more reinforced, with a paneled design across the torso—probably at least somewhat bullet resistant. Much more drab, too, in olive and black with the only real color coming from the rank insignia on the shoulders.

"Mmm," Spaurh makes a noncommittal sound. It's different, that's for sure, but she prefers her Abh uniform (and she'll be wearing it as long as she's in here). She leans back again, eyes falling shut.

"What bring you here, anyway?"

Luly lets it revert to the Abh uniform, still tugging at it a little.

"It... looked interesting," she admits. "I was wondering what you were doing."

A small frown creases her face for a moment, "Re-fighting a battle."

Luly knows that look. She's felt the same way herself before.

"...I try not to focus too much on that kind of thing," she says quietly. "Don't want to let myself get lost in the past and forget about the presence. But I'm kind've a seat-of-the-pants pilot anyway."

Spaurh positively detests feeling this way. It's one of the few times she remembers this kind of self-doubt and it's aggravating her to no end, "Normally, I don't. But I've nothing else to do on this ship... so wretchedly boring."

She lets out a long-suffering sigh.

"There has to be something you could come up with," Luly says optimistically. "Uhh... hm. You said you haven't dealt with the ground. What about aircraft?"

"Unless you can find some business transactions for me to dabble in, I somewhat doubt it," she sighs again.

She looks up at the mention of aircraft, laughing, "...Lieutenant, I've never even been in the upper atmosphere. I've spent my entire life in space."

Luly grins. "Well, then we've got something!" She blinks, working something around in her head. "All right, give us Wright Field, and change me back to normal, let's see, old piloting gear..."

The ship melts away, suddenly, into an Earth landscape—a long airfield and set of runways (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Wright-Patterson_Air_Force_Base_-_10_Oct_2000.jpg). There's a little jolt as the gravity changes to that of Earth. The tarmac is hot, almost cloyingly so, but a nice breeze is flowing freshly off the surrounding fields. With no other traffic at all, the air is surprisingly fresh.

And Luly—and Spaurh—are suddenly wearing almost comically classic piloting outfits (http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_p/0_photographers_yerbury_er_1915_pilot.jpg), with a biplane (http://thedestinationcenter.com/images/tourimages/66251900_1238174101.jpg) sitting on the tarmac in front of them. Luly's back to her normal self, too.

"Wright wha-?" She's cut off and lets out a small indignant cry of surprise as she suddenly finds herself in higher gravity and some of the most ridiculous clothes she's ever had the displeasure of wearing. She is quietly thankful for the fact that the Abriel isn't here - she'd probably die of embarrassment otherwise. She tugs at the clothing awkwardly and shifts uncomfortably.

"...how do you survive like this? It's far too warm, it's too bright, and I feel like I'm twice as heavy."

She snorts as she spots the biplane, "...and what is that?"

"Oh, c'mon, this is great!" Luly says. Of course, with how dark her skin is, the sun's rays are a bit less of a problem. "Besides, you'll be happy you've got that once we get up there." She points at the clear blue sky.

"It's an aircraft, a real classic one. A biplane." She moves over to the virtual biplane, checking on the propeller and the exposed pistons. "I bet you've never even seen something so primitive."

"If you say so," she says, as if she's been suffering a thousand years rather than a few minutes, "And you would be quite correct. Are you sure that thing isn't just going to fall apart when you turn it on?"

Still, she quietly follows Luly over to the old craft.

"We don't really have a full crew, so I think I'll have to skip the pull-start," Luly says. She barely remembers how to do that part, anyway. "Here, c'mon—you get the back seat," she says as she carefully climbs up onto the wing, offering a hand to help Spaurh up. Compared to an Abh—especially in this gravity field—she might seem almost disproportionately strong, especially given how well of a shape she keeps herself in.

"I'm probably going to regret this," she sighs as she takes the offered hand and clambers up. She eyes the cockpit with distaste, before finally slipping into the backseat, "What's the point of this primitive craft?"

"To fly," Luly says. "They got hopscotched pretty quick, but old rigs like this were still popular in the first World War, once they figured out how to put the guns in without shooting off the propellers." Leaning in to what may be an uncomfortable disturbance of personal space she makes sure the harness is securely buckled and tightened around Spaurh.

"All right, start up now," she says, and suddenly the prop spins into motion, the engine roaring. The vibration is enough to make it feel like the whole plane's going to shake itself to pieces for somebody accustomed to the smoothness of Abh ships. "Usually it's not that easy!" Luly shouts back over the noise. "Takes at least two people to coordinate, and three if you want to make sure you don't get hit when you're pulling the prop!"

"How delightful."

Give her a patrol ship any day of the week.

She doesn't flinch when Luly leans in rather close - Spaurh violates other people's personal space all the time. She can handle that sort of thing. She double-checks the harness herself and settles back, only to jolt upright when the engine roars to life. She yells, trying to be heard, "You're sure this thing isn't going to explode? Really?"

"Probably won't!" Luly shouts back. "A stall's more likely, but I'm getting better at not causing those!" Oh, that's... reassuring. "The set of controls you have is locked, but I'll let you steer some once we're up!" The controls... foot pedals, a throttle, a large and unwieldy-looking control stick. That can't be all, can it? The internal panel has a full set of primitive-looking flight instruments—all mechanical, of course—though they still seem almost hopelessly undercomprehensive and unintuitive.

Luly releases the brakes, and the biplane lurches forward down the tarmac, slowly accelerating.

Spaurh is not about to show fear, even in the face of this strange flying contraption that is probably going to explode. Or possibly crash on takeoff, one of the two. She simply sighs in resignation and gently grabs the stick in front of her, lining her feet up with the pedals. How did her ancestors survive?

They're very close to running out of runway by the time the plane smoothly tilts back, the wheels losing contact with the tarmac. "We have liftoff!" Luly shouts, and hurks the wings into a congratulatory--but, given how close they still are to the ground, probably somewhat disturbing--waggle. The breeze from the propeller and icreased airspeed is already buffeting the two of them. Maybe she was right about the silly outfits...

Spaurh clings to the cockpit for dear life. Taking fifteen gees of acceleration is one thing, but this is something else entirely. Sh'll grudgingly admit that Luly was right about the outfits, but she's still convinced that this primitive contraption is going to fall apart or just explode in midair (and if this weren't a simulation, scatter pieces of Abh across a couple square miles).

She's not airsick - she's spent most of her life in low or zero-gravity environments. No, she's just apprehensive about this vehicle. She glances over the edge, watching the ground slowly pull away beneath them. That's different....

Quite possibly entirely to further scare Spaurh, Luly makes the old plane 'bounce', spilling air and regaining altitude a few times before she finally pushes the throttle completely forward. Now that she's stopped the showboating, the acceleration forward and upward smooths out, at least as much as it can with the constant vibration of the combustion engine.

As they rise from the relatively pristine environs of the airfield (it might well be a standing museum or something, given its condition), the megastructure engineering here and there on the horizon becomes more obvious--principally an absolutely huge city-arcology, easily tall enough to swallow up full skyscrapers. And there are the stacked superroads, strectching future-urban sprawl, cities layered on parks layered on subcities... If this is Luly's world, engineering there must be a big business. The population count it seems like the infrastructure is built to support is ridiculously, massively high--maybe even literally insanely so, by the sort of standards an Abh is used to.

Spaurh's face doesn't betray fear. But inwardly, she's swearing that she's going to pay Luly back for this. Somehow. It's bad enough that the plane is practically falling out of the sky on its own, without Luly's help. She does her best to maintain her outward appearance of calm and slowly releases her death-grip on the frame to lean back as best she can in her seat, exuding an air of nonchalance.

She glances towards the city, taking it in. The Abh did build cities, at least not on the ground. The nearest she can recall seeing to that maze of metal and concrete is the Imperial Capital - a massive space station (or series of stations linked together, depending on who you ask) that houses the heart of the Empire. It's interesting to see how landers live. And honestly, she can't really tell how they stand it.

"Do all of you landers live in cities like that?"

"A lot of us do!" Luly shouts back to be heard over the engine. "The arco complexes are about the safest place you can be against the Migou. You can't really see it from the outside, but the core sections can take full military assaults without cracking for at least a few weeks."

She continues on, sliding the plane to only a few hundred feet above one of the elevated super-roadways, following it along. "And there's the refugees, too! We only control about half the planet and half the people from the other half have moved in with us."

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