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, that wouldn't be any fun..." Spaurh pouts for a moment, "...although doing business with a completely alien species would be an experience."

That thought seems to perk her up.

"Yeah, but you'd probably spend most of the time figuring out how many blorgs you get to the snorkack and why a left-handed blozdonkit is more valuable than a right-handed one," Luly counters, fiddling with the zipper of her outfit and the amount of pressed-together cleavage it displays.

Spaurh leans back in her chair, tapping her hands together, "Well, that's half the fun, isn't it? The haggling, the discussion, the maneuvering..."

Spaurh's outfit remains the relatively modest uniform of the Space Forces. Apparently, she's choosing not to comment on Luly's beyond what's already been said.

Luly seems much more comfortable in the weird, selectively-revealing getup than a lot of humans--or Abh--would be. It's kind of a subtle, half-noticeable difference in her body language and regard for it: it's decoration to her, not covering just for the point of covering.

She grins a little. "Business stuff has never really been my thing, I guess. I'm pretty good at juggling requisition forms, I guess, but..." She shrugs.

That kind of thing is something that Spaurh does notice. She merely smiles a bit wider and crosses her legs at the ankle.

"I enjoy doing business. It's one of my few pleasures."

She continues to tap the tips of her fingers together in thought as she muses, "It keeps me entertained."

One might wonder if, despite her small nods to decency, she's ever quite entirely understood that other people don't think something approximating the same way.

"I thougt that's what you wanted me for," Luly says lightly, and mumbles something to herself. She snaps her fingers.

Spaurh will suddenly find herself in the same sort of outfit as the Nazzadi woman is wearing--some stylistic differences here and there and a mildly different cut, but still basically similar.

"Well-" Spaurh cuts herself off as she finds herself in a rather more breezy outfit. She blinks slowly, then arches a brow at Luly, "...is that really necessary? I'm perfectly happy with my uniform, you know."

She might be flustered, but she's done enough business over the years (along with being a fleet commander) to know how not to show it. The only sign of irritation is the slight frown on her face.

"...and as I was saying, I can't count on you being around all the time, can I?"

"Ah, so it's entertaining when it happens to other people," Luly says with a little knowing smirk. As she looks out at the stars, though, the self-pleased expression fades. "I think this place is corrupting me. Infinite power et cetera... I keep having to stop myself from cheating in my own training exercises."

Spaurh yawns lazily, "It's entertaining when it happens to an Abriel, anyway."

She shrugs at that and follows her gaze out into the simulated reaches of space, "That's something you have to get past. If there's no challenge... then it's just boring."

"Well, that's the thing... if I know it's not real, it doesn't feel like a challenge even if it is. You kind of get what I mean?" She gestures loosely, wiggling her fingers. "There's always that ability to, ah, get out, I s'pose. The time I've spent on the fronts, you get it right or you die, no other options. It's a lot more--motivating."

"That's true. There's no real substitute for actual combat. Simulations can only prepare you so much before you have to experience the real thing," Spaurh leans her chin in her hand idly, the other making a few sweeping gestures, "Death is a powerful motivator."

"The other thing is, without Colo to work with, it's just not the same." She slouches in her chair. "Engels are unique, all of them. There's no way to really simulate how it feels to pilot one." She sounds kind of like someone with a lost lover--or a forcibly-prevented addiction. "There's a thrill to it you can't get with a normal system."

"Well, I'm not quite sure if I can relate to that."

Spaurh drops her free hand to tap against the armrest, murmuring something. A moment later she's back in her uniform.

"I mean, it's not as if we have anything like your systems to relate it to."

"We barely have anything to relate it to... Engels are a pretty big leap from even our normal main battle mechs." Luly weaves her fingers together. "I... eh, I could set up a Broadsword or something if you'd kind of want to get a feel for it," she offers. "Old-gen by now, but they're sturdy as hell and twice as reliable. And you don't need a couple years of specialist training to handle the interface."

Spaurh shrugs, "May as well. We've nothing else to do at the moment."

Luly nods, and focuses, and snaps her fingers again—

They're suddenly in a broad, open, Earthlike grassy plain, stretching to the horizon—simply an abstracted-out environment, probably. But not alone... no, they're both sitting on top of an inert thirty-eight-foot-tall war machine (http://www.cthulhutech.com/media/art/claymore.jpg).

"This is a Claymore," Luly says, rapping the blocky 'head' affectionately. "They're kind of... the closest you can get to an Engel without actually being in one.

Spaurh shifts slightly, still trying to adjust to the gravity. She peers down at her Claymore with a degree of amusement and interest. Almost like a child examining a new toy.

She glances over at Luly and shrugs, "How does one operate this?"

"Well, first you get in the cockpit." Luly raps on the 'head' again, in shave-and-a-haircut pattern.

The chest plates shift, move, and slide open under them, revealing access to a rather cramped-looking interior. Hard but not impossible to get into down from where the two women are.

"Looks cramped," she murmurs, then slips inside after a few moments of contortions and wriggling. Cramped isn't too bad - she's not claustrophobic. Might get uncomfortable though.

There's a single, tight fit of a seat, with a full five-point harness involved.

"Strap yourself in and I'll start it up," Luly says from up top, then raps on the outside again. Slowly, the chest section starts to seal inwards again.

Spaurh glances over the controls as she straps herself in, then glances up as the cockpit starts to seal up. She fights down a brief flare of panic - being stuck inside this thing can't be any worse than being in a ship in space. At least here if something goes horribly, drastically wrong, there's oxygen and gravity outside.

"Ready."

As the mech seals shut, the controls slide back into place from their semi-recessed positions. Foot pedals, a pair of joysticks with a small array of buttons on some kind of articulated arm-things, and... that's it? Seems kind of minimal...

And then, blinding out the dim glow of various status lights, the wraparound screens light up. The seams of the panels are obvious, but they still go about 270 degrees around, above, and even a bit below, ending well past the hand controls. For about ten seconds it's just all startup displays and status readouts on a neutral tiled-NEG-logo background, but then the clusters die away, revealing a picture-perfect view of that same grass outside—

—and the Side Effect kicks in. Spaurh may get a sudden case of vertigo at the very convincing, brain-mushing feeling of being forty feet tall with chicken-legs.

She pokes the controls experimentally while she waits, settling her feet over the pedals and shifting until she manages to get comfortable. Her fingers wrap around the joysticks and she laughs to herself. It seems rather... primitive, especially when compared to the interfaces on an Abh starship. Still, she supposes that it will have to do.

The screens light up and she waits patiently, watching and reading the displays and readouts as they pop up and scroll past. A distraction, at best.

And then suddenly she feels like she's just stood up far too fast and everything is just a bit dizzy. She resists the urge to throw her arms out to steady herself as she suddenly feels like she's the mech. She blinks, trying to clear her head, trying to adjust.

"...I... well, that was... unexpected."

"Careful!" Luly says, clinging to her position atop the mech. Filtered through the external mikes, it sounds a little bit mechanical, though the spatial positioning of the noise inside the cockpit is spot-on.

As the initial overload-rush fades into continued sensation, Spaurh might realize she can feel Luly there, sitting on her—well, not her, but in the slow thrum of the D-Engine that powers the war machine, her brain doesn't want to make that distinction...

Spaurh turns her head, trying to see what's on her shoulder. It takes her a moment to realize that it's Luly, standing on the metal surface of the machine. This is strange. It's similar to when she hooks into a ship, but different at the same time. She swivels her head back to the screens and tries to dispel the vague feeling that she's having an out-of-body experience.

"Well, this is certainly different."

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