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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"But that's no fun," Luly shouts back. "You don't even get to roast any marshmallows."

They go up, and up, and up... The little plane isn't very fast, of course, but with the only plane of reference being the ground they're heading only a few steps from directly away from, it's kind of vertiginous.

"Marshmallows...?" She honestly has no idea what those are.

Once again, he's clinging to her harness, staring up into the clear blue sky as the plane climbs. She's almost one hundred per cent certain that the engine is going to cut out on them.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death...

"You know! Marshmallows!"

Luly dips the plane forward just a little—still angled well up, though—and starts pulling it through twists and waves.

And then it stalls. There's a long, long few seconds as the plane tilts backwards, losing air—the engine is still roaring but the wings aren't getting any lift, and now they're upside-down and still falling, and the biplane's very rapidly going into a wrenchingly disorienting spin stall—

"Oh, shit!" Luly very clearly audibly says.

Spaurh does her best to remain calm. Outwardly, she's succeeding remarkably well. Inwardly, she can't believe she's about to die in this horrible, inelegant craft. Still, the spinning and everything is disorienting. All she can do is cling to the airplane and hope that they come out of it.

Luly wrestles with the controls, spouting curses in a dozen languages.

After long, tense, gut-wrenching seconds, she finally manages to wrestle it into an even dive, and pulls sharply up, leveling up the biplane only a spare few inches above the roadway it was just about to plow into.

"Yes!" she shouts triumphantly—

—and they hit a building.

Fortunately, the Sensorium's safety features are on by default, as they normally are. As the plane roars into a burning fireball, Luly and Spaurh find themselves standing on the roadway several hundred feet away.

"...oops," the dark-skinned woman says.

Spaurh quickly looks down at herself to make sure that she's in one piece, then demurely brushes some dust off of herself. She's calm, composed. Certainly not terrified or mentally cheering the fact that she's not in the middle of that fireball over there. She arches one brow, watches the smoke rising into the blue sky, then turns to Luly, "...if I were you, I would stick to ground vehicles, Lieutenant."

"Usually I'm not such a daredevil with it," Luly admits, smiling very sheepishly. "And I've spent most of my training time on stuff that can't actually stall..." She looks rather embarrassed about what happened.

Spaurh smirks, her tone teasing, "...as I said then, stick with ground vehicles."

She pauses and then grins, "Well, since you've shown me yours... I could give you a little taste of an Abh communications shuttle."

"Oh, that'd be pretty good," Luly says, her eyes lighting up (not literally). "If we're going to do that I want to give you at least a look at what a modern fighter's like after, though," she adds.

"I hate to admit, but I'm bit out of practice - I haven't flown a shuttle since my junior officer days. Still, it will be good practice," she pauses and remarks dryly, "...as long as your modern fighters are sturdier than that contraption you just had me clamber into."

She glances up at the sky and mutters under her breath. The scene shifts around them and they're sitting in the two chairs of the communications shuttle. The canopy provides a sweeping, unbroken view of space. Stars, unblinking, sit in the inky blackness and just off of the starboard bow lies the Lashkau (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/seikai/images/e/e4/Lashkau_and_1st_Fleet.jpg), Spaurh's flagship. It's painted a crimson red - the same color of her eyes, if Luly is observant enough to notice that.

"Ohhh..." Luly mumbles as she looks sharply around at the stars. "It's nice to get out here again," she says softly, leaning forward in her seat. "Is that the Lashkau?" she asks, looking over at the brightly-colored ship with her own red eyes.

"I do love the stars... we are the Kin of the Stars, after all."

She glances over at Luly as she hooks herself into the control system, "Yes. Not a very elegant craft, I'm afraid, but perfectly serviceable and a good warship."

She taps a few commands into her controls and glances over at Luly, "You may want to brace yourself. Prepare for high acceleration maneuvering."

The last seems to be more to the ship than to Luly.

Luly leans back into the seat, lining herself up so that she won't be too uncomfortable if pushed back into it—not that she quite realizes the sort of gees she might end up in. "Seems pretty elegant to me," she says quietly.

"You should see my old ship. She was a beauty..." She shoves the throttle wide open as she speaks and the thrusters fire. The shuttle jumps forward as it suddenly accelerates, pushing out about six or seven Gs of acceleration. Spaurh however, seems to be perfectly fine, sitting as calmly as if she were at a dinner table.

Luly lets out a sound through her gritted teeth like 'yeeeee' as she's pushed back into her seat. Try and bear it, try and bear it, try and bear it... repeats her train of thought. Unlike a certain Count Hyde, though, she already has a fair bit of G-experience, and so she manages not to complain, even if she's not not sure if she could even try and move from the chair at the moment.

"I'm not going too fast am I?" Spaurh glances over with a grin, pushing the acceleration a bit higher, then whipping the ship straight up in a high-speed turn, "I would hate to think I'm causing you discomfort."

"I'm... fine..." Luly grunts through her teeth, hands hanging clawlike onto the seat for dear life. She really isn't—especially with that turn—but she'd absolutely hate to admit it now.

"Oh, good. Let's try a bit faster, then." She smoothly opens the throttle a bit more and begins taking the shuttle through several high-speed turns. The Abh have a saying (well, not really, but it might as well be): payback is a bitch.

Luly nnnghs and tries to keep her composure. It's not working very well.

Spaurh may notice that Luly's just blacked out for a few moments. ...and then again. Yeah, this is hitting past what she can physically manage. Probably well past, with each of those turns.

Spaurh laughs to herself and then slowly decelerates, bringing the ship back to a stop.

"And that's an Abh shuttle for you."

Luly is panting, slumped in the seat. Sweating more heavily than she really should be, too.

"Jesus fucking Christ you could have killed me with that," she mumbles, and breaks into sudden, coughing laughter.

"Considering we weren't killed by your crashing into a building, I believe it's safe to say that this wouldn't kill you either," Spaurh replies with a chuckle. She's either oblivious to Luly's condition or she's just not commenting on it.

Luly's eyes squeeze shut, trying to force her racing heartbeat and wobbly breathing back into a normal rhythm. She's better at quasi-autohypnosis than most people, but she still looks kind of ill.

Spaurh gives her a reassuring (and perhaps a bit condescending) pat on the shoulder, "You'll be fine."

Honestly, she does like the woman, if only because she's providing some degree of entertainment.

Luly coughs, hurks, and dry-heaves, face twisting into a distinctly unpleasant expression. After a few moments she gasps for air again, rubbing at her face.

"I kind of wish I hadn't eaten lunch today," she mumbles, finally starting to properly re-center herself.

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