ic Space Adventures: Pony and Trap

[Tiffany Korta]

Eh'Qui 9
Time and Date unknown

 

There were many signs that Facsimile wasn't on Earth anymore, the grass he was lying in was to green, the sky was a little too blue and looking down at him was several small horse-faced aliens. They looked down at him with a mix of concern and curiosity, after all as far as he knew he'd just fallen from the sky in front of them.

 

The chatted excitedly to each other, apparently trying to work out if he was a danger, in cute little voices that sounded a little like horse whinnies.

[Exaccus]

He hummed to himself softly as he watched the strange creatures placidly for a while as he lay on the off colour grass and stared into a too-blue sky over his head, trying his best to remember exactly had happened to him as he watched the cute little aliens talking amongst themselves.

 

If only he'd been paying more attention in that class he'd probably know what to do, some kind of universal greeting or some such.

 

Cute little blighters though, got ewoks beat at least, what could go wrong? well...what could go wrong that i can't handle at least.

 

having thus reasoned he slowly sat himself up and making a small circular waving motion by way of greeting gesture reached into his pocket and pulled out the pack of spearmints he kept for freshening his breath, balancing one on the back of his hand (so that his fingers were unable to grab at anyone brave enough to approach and investigate) Offered the treat out to the crowd of strange beings.

 

"I come in peace for all mankind." borrowed words from another space man but sincere

[Tiffany Korta]

The Traveller

Even after all these years, the borders of the Lor Republic were still in flux with many planets either side settling old scores or just rebuilding. The Navy tried it's best but with the focus on the core worlds there just wasn't enough resources to patrol everywhere. In such a climate smugglers thrived bringing in weapons and artefacts wisely banned in the Republic. Luckily there were a few that kept an eye out for the most egregious smuggles, which why Sitara was out here patrolling the border in the Kavaca.

 

It suited Sitara pretty well as she had been getting itchy feet doing paperwork back at CoVic Station. She'd been spending the last few days following one such smuggler only for them to eject their cargo, so she now was making her way to the planet where the weapon had fallen.

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post
After a minute the braver of the aliens darted forward and grabbed the candy making their way proudly to the other, who all examined this prize with some interest. After a few moments, the alien tried the mint and seemed to enjoy the experience, talking excitedly to the others aliens. After a few more minutes of conversation, they all agreed on something.

 

The braver of them stepped through again and offered a hand to Facsimile whilst pointing towards a plume of smoke that ruined the perfectly blue sky.

[Exaccus]

Smiling warmly and careful not to bear his teeth he accepted the hand and stood up, looking where his attention was directed at the towering plume of smoke in the distance.

 

Im betting that there's trouble.

 

he tried to measure the beings face as it pointed towards the plume of smoke, prolly a big fire which meant that there was either a central fire in whatever kind of place these little horsefolks lived or someone had attacked them and left a smouldering ruin of it. either way that seemed to be the direction of the day.

 

"lead on then, friend." gesturing to the indicated direction "or do you want me to go it alone maybe?" gesturing to himself and then the plume of smoke.

 

 

[Tiffany Korta]

The Traveller

Sitara's memories off Eh'Qui 9 were a little out of date, the last time she was here the Houyhnhnm were a warlike people constantly fighting among themselves. The clean skies and thriving cities made it look like they'd sorted themselves out, it made the smoking impact sight stand out among the flawless vista below her.

 

Whilst the Houyhnhnm were alright she didn't want to draw their attention to the crash site until she invested the type of weapon the smugglers had abandoned. So she gently put the Kavaca down out of sight before deploying her armour to go out and look at the impact site. 

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post
The little alien showed no real fear as they gently, but firmly, guided Facsimile along it quickly becoming apparent that they were going towards the plume of smoke.

 

As they got closed it was apparent that something had crashed into the planet leaving a large gash in the perfect green grass before landing in a now smoking crater. Through the smoke was a figure that was most definitely not one of the aliens.

 

Shining brightly in the sunlight was a humanoid figure, possibly a robot with it's incredibly enabled white ceramic skin standing  with a long pole like weapon.

[Exaccus]

it was really a rather scenic planet, where ever this was he'd found himself, he'd prolly have wandered off if left to his own devices but the little horse folks were keeping him on the straight and narrow towards this plume of smoke, clearly they thought it was prudent to do so for some reason or another.

 

peering out from the forrest line at the humanoid figure he could see why, whoever or whatever they were they looked like him in stature and they were visably armed with some kinda sci-fi future weapon, he'd better handle this delicately, gesturing for the little aliens to stay put he made his way sneakily around the edge of the forrest till he was far enough away that any stray shots wouldn't be at risk of hitting his little friends before emerging from the tree line, arms raised in surrender

 

"hey there, hows it going? My names Alex and I am....very lost."

 

 

[Tiffany Korta]

 

The Traveller

"Humans you have this habit of turning up in the most unexpected places! It must be why the Lor find you species so infuriating!"

 

There was a chuckle from beneath the mask, as became transparent revealing what looked like a (south) Asian woman. Who was speaking in perfect English.

 

"I'm called Sitara, and I came from Earth and very long ago. I'm now part of a group called the Praetorians. The good news is that I can get you home as soon as you want, though if I remember the Houyhnhnm brew this amazing alcoholic beverage with apples. I just need to check whats in the crater is intact... oh Ya***ti!" he might not understand the last word but the intent was pretty clear.

[Tiffany Korta]

 

GM Post

The crater was pretty shallow, having bounced a few times on the perfectly green fields, and was filled with a spherical object that was definitely technological in nature. And though scraped and burned, probably from a fall from space and the bouncing on the field a few times, it was still in pretty good shape anything that had been inside was sure to survive pretty intact.

 

That was difficult to tell though as the pod had been opened and was distinctively empty.

 

"There was some kind of weapon in that pod which is now loose somewhere on this planet!"

[Exaccus]

"Oh thats neat! And really convinient....you one of them ancient astronauts like on the discovery channel specials?"

 

"Haha, well this is the first time ive traveled outside of america....well inside the same dimension anyway...." scratching the back of his head in mild embarressment to admit it.

 

"Oh thats cool, thanks! Im not entirely sure how i got here....so getting back was a bit of a puzzler....not that this place isnt nice, the locals are friendly enough if a bit skittish, don't understand a word but they liked spearmints as much as the next horse." He explained, really on quite a ramble now at least until the situation with the pod took a turn for the alarming.

 

"Oh dang....we'd better chase whatever it is down before it starts....laying eggs in locals or whatever it does....dont worry about me either im kinda....well i wanna say unique but power to copy stuff is copying....you think the locals have any clue about it? A bunch of em lead me this way."

[Tiffany Korta]

 

The Traveller

"Tell you what you buy a drink, or two, back at CoVic station and I'll tell you how I ended up in space. But I'll give you this for free we were never confused about the aliens being lost gods or anything, cause it probably helped that the actual gods were out and about!"

 

She then knelt down and examined the edge of the crater and the open capsule. After a few minutes, she looked at some kind of technical device on her wrist before adding.

 

"Well lucky for you it's not a bioagent or nanite swarm, but it looks like it's some kind of autonomous weapon of some kind. Let's see if the locals know what happened here?"

 

She began to call out the neighing language of the aliens.

[Tiffany Korta]

 

GM Post

After a few minutes, the braver of the aliens stuck there head out from cover and started to reply to Sitara, who helpfully provided a translation as, she as it turned out, spoke.

 

<"Meteor fell from the sky a few hours ago, but nothing came from the object before spearmint fell from the sky. We thought they might have something to do with the object."> it was weird to hear her try and say the alien, to her, word.

 

<"Something must have exited the pod whilst you were busy with Spearmint there?">

 

With what must have been the horse equivalent of a nod the alien agreed, taking a communications device that apparently they kept attached to the rump, and began to ask around to find out what had left the pod.

[Exaccus]

"oh thats a neat gizmo, im glad you liked the spearmint!" he said with an eager nod of his head before turning back to face sitara as she had called herself.

 

"Oh cool, im always partial to trying new stuff, but jeeze you guys have some pretty nasty weapons out here huh? Grey goo nanites and disease bombs....eesh makes me kinda glad the loonies back home stick to heat rays and weather control machines for the most part heh..." in all honestly he was a bit rattled by how casually those two other things, both subjects of rather popular cult classics were mentioned but he knew better than to let it get the best of him.

 

"hmmm....birds eye view might help..." he mumbled "now uh, don't panic buds, im not gonna hurt nobody of course." he explained as he reached for his ever trusty belt buckle and with a light brush of his fingers took on its properties, assuming a shining silver formj and taking a mighty leap into the air to get a good look from on high. figuring that if this thing was a autonomous robot thing it'd probably not care too much about the state of the forest as it marched through doing what it did best.

 

for his part he'd have to be careful about where and how he landed, his trajectory he pushed him away from the others of course, he weighed over a ton in his metallic form and he'd rather not land on anyone.

[Tiffany Korta]

 

The Traveller

"Those are lightweight weapons compared to some, that's why we try and keep them out of the hands of those less able to deal with covers most people really."

 

She watched the human take to the air, not the most common way to do things but she had seen similar before. Which was just bound to happen when you'd travelled around as much as she did.

 

And it wasn't a bad idea, so after a quick goodbye whinny to the natives, she activated the suits flight capacity to follow along with the human.

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post
From the air, it was finally possible to see how advanced the aliens actually were for in the distance was a gleaming white city with lots of little dots that must be some form of flying cars.

 

But more immediately a trail through the long grass showed the passage of something moving through it, though it was impossible for some reason to make the weapon out. Luckily it didn't seem to be moving faster than a running man so they should be able to catch the weapon up if they could see the actual thing.

 

The bad news was that the object looked to be making its way towards the city, which would be a terrible thing if this thing was even half as bad as Sitara had implied.

[Exaccus]

It proved difficult to maintain a conversation with his constant bouncing up and down but he none the less did his best to keep it up as he sprang along towards the trail.

 

"So...How Did this thing get here? the locals don't seem the type to go building death machines...Then again you'd not expect a goofy superfan to go shooting icebeams out of a hockey stick either."

 

keeping his mouth running helped him stay calm even if it was mostly idle prattle, he much like the metal he was currently composed of worked best when under momentum, it was far easier to keep his brain and body going than to make it start again after a sudden stop

 

"Are there like, any space politics involved with this thing that mean i shouldn't smash it over much or junk like that?"

[Tiffany Korta]

 

The Traveller

Sitara was quite impressed at the curiosity of this human if they were all like this there was no wonder they'd come so far in such a short time. All this must be what irritated the Lor about them, they had a certain way of doing things and anyone who did thing different where a chore to them.

 

"This region was disabled by the Incursion and the space beyond this is contested by half a dozen balkanised states. Some of them will by anything  to win there battles, I was trying to stop someone smuggling beyond the Lor when they dumped their cargo here on this peaceful little world."

 

As she explained she tried to keep an eye on whatever it was, encased in what appeared to be some kind of stealth field. It wouldn't be long before it noticed them and tried to do something about their presence.

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post
The Traveller was right in her analysis as the artificial mind of the war droid they'd be following, invisible to them both for now. Its devious mind programmed only for death and destruction had been focused on its many targets, the beautiful city only a few kilometres from where they were, but now it turned its baleful intent to those following.

 

It stopped it solid progress and turned warming up it weapons ready to attack its foes, still unseen by them both. Both of them would soon see exactly what the smugglers were selling to fight those border wars...

[Exaccus]

"yeah? that was a rough time on earth, i can't imagine what it was like to be on the frontlines of something like that..." he said distantly, the loss of a single world to that engine of destruction was unfathomable to him.

 

"Heavy topic! imma focus on smashing the all-spark outta this tin plated terminator, two pronged attack! he said with a wink as he descended for the final time and leaned forward directing his momentum horizontally springing forth and low to the ground, close enough now that he felt comfortable without his eyes in the sky, though still able to see Sitara and use her positioning to navigate as he swooped in low in a beeline towards the end of the trail of disruption he'd seen.

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post
The android obviously sensed that they were trouble as apparently from nowhere there was a smoke and flame and a number of small missiles whirled through the air. With unerring accuracy, those tiny projectiles streaked towards Fascmile. At the last moment, all of the projectiles exploded sending a burst of energy and projectiles towards the Terran hero.

 

They couldn't be sure obviously, the thing was still invisible, but a slight movement in the grass suggested that the android had moved.

[Tiffany Korta]

 

The Traveller

It might be invisible but the highly advanced targeting system of her suit tried it best to target the Android and to help just a little she fired the two parts of her blasters filling the area with energies bolts. She was sure that they'd needed a more solid solution unless they got lucky.

 

"I think I can jam the droids stealth field, but I'll need you to keep it busy for a little while."

 

The interactions of the various energies going on around it right now gave her a rich seam of data to which work out the frequency to jam the device, she hoped it'd been a while since she'd pulled such a stunt.

[Exaccus]

Maybe it was some psychological side effect of taking on the very essence of steel but he found himself very head strong whenever he took on his most common form, leaping headlong into the missiles as they detonated around him, his steel body deflectiong what force it couldn't absorb and carrying him safely through the munitions detonations, though he could feel himself vibrating like a tuning fork from the impact.

 

"No problem Sitara, I've been told im very distracting!" He answered as he took a short hop forwards to spring high into the air.

 

"Hey tin-head, lemme give you a hand!" He called out as his body twisted mid air and his hands met with tremendous force directing a cone of shockwaves of displaced air directly downwards, carrying on through his jump and positioning himself in a patch of grass between the wardroids last position and the shining white city in the distance

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post
There was a massive throwing up of dirt and grass emanating out from Facsimiles attack and briefly, the android was illuminated in the field of particles. It was a boxy humanoid not much bigger than the tallest of the natives, but apparently much more deadly.

 

It was only visible if you could call it that for a few seconds before it swiftly moved to make itself again invisible from them both. It was difficult to tell how effective their attacks was, though for now the droid didn't seem willing or may be able to attack in return.

[Tiffany Korta]

The Traveller

"Well I don't think the local gardeners are going to be happy with us, but good work keeping it busy. I just feel a few more seconds and I should have this down."

 

She was relying on the fact that out here English was so rare few translation devices carried it, she knew the bot was smart enough it would quickly work out what she was doing if it could understand her speech.

 

Still, she couldn't guarantee that it couldn't work it out, so she worked quickly to generate the jamming field.