Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

*dogscoff dons his "I am a rabid HifH fan!" T-shirt, then straps on his bumpin' boots and does the laces up reeeeal tight.

<font color="purple"> Ker-BUMP! </font>



BTW, what kind of editting did you want? I'd love to be involved. I've done a fair bit of writing myself, as well as some translation/ editting of other ppl's work on xenology.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

I also read this.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Point taken. Enjoy!


“So, what do you think?” Kagan asked.
Himself, Alice &amp; Saraea were in the galley of the Daedalus. The two women were seated at a small table, while Kagan slouched against the wall. The Daedalus was currently cruising across the vast expanse of space between the Victoria system’s two main jump nodes. The trip would take nine days, traveling at the maximum permitted speed designated by the system’s authorities. They’d just finished a leisurely dinner, during which Kagan had filled Saraea in on what had been happening, interrupted with great regularity by Alice who provided additional, although seemingly irrelevant details. He’d just gotten to the part about the explosion on Kolis Station.
“Well,” Saraea said slowly. “It sounds to me like someone’s trying to kill you.”
“But why?” Kagan asked.
Saraea shot him a meaningful glance. “Aside from the obvious?” she asked sweetly.
Kagan made a rude gesture at her. She made a ruder gesture back. And Alice made a much ruder gesture at both of them.
“Where in the civilized galaxy did you learn that?” asked Kagan.
“Nowhere,” she replied innocently, tucking both hands underneath her.
“As I was saying,” Saraea continued. “Whoever tried to do you in obviously didn’t much care about innocent bystanders, had access to state of the art equipment, an extremely skilled operative or operatives, and likely had an inside man on the job, too. Which leaves one of two possibi-“
She was interrupted as Alice suddenly jumped up, knocking over the table. “We’re under attack!” she shrieked.
Saraea and Kagan looked at her in puzzlement. “No, dear,” Kagan assured her. “For once we’re not-“ The remainder of his platitude disintegrated into the sort of language he’d been telling himself not to use around her as the ship lurched violently, throwing him to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and took off running down the hallway with Saraea in hot pursuit, only to find Alice already seated at the sensor station on the bridge.
“Three bad guys,” she informed them. “All of them bigger than us.”
“Any ideas on who they are?” Kagan asked.
“Um, yes,” she replied. “The ones with the funny spikey things on their heads. Kinda yellow greeny?”
“Taurens?” Kagan exclaimed. “What the hell are Taurens doing out here?”
“That’s the ones,” Alice replied. “Taurens. Terrans. Taurens, Terrans, Taurans, Terrans. It’s all good. Or bad. Yes, in this case it’s definitely bad.”
Kagan ignored her ramblings, something he was getting really quite good at these days and moved to a weapons station, while Saraea took the helm.
“Looks like three battlecruisers,” he said nervously. “Not familiar with the exact class though.”
The ship lurched again as their pursuers managed to land a couple hits, despite Saraea’s best evasive maneouvers.
“Oh no, we’re all going to die!” Alice exclaimed.
“More than likely,” Kagan replied as he began plotting in a firing solution that would hopefully slow the Taurens down enough for them to make an escape.
“Oh dear,” she replied. “I was being flippant.”
“No time for that now, the shooting’s starting,” said Kagan as his first missile salvo tore through space towards its targets. The battlecruiser’s point defense swatted the missiles down effortlessly, only allowing one through, and it was unlikely the huge ship even felt it. He made a few adjustments to the engine ignition sequence for the following salvo. The missiles would burn out a lot faster with the new configuration, but at this short range it wouldn’t matter much. The Daedalus trembled gently as her second salvo tore free, and this time the Tauren’s point defense only managed to stop a pair of the missiles, and the recipient of the salvo definitely felt it this time. The battlecruisers slowed their approach, increasing the distance between them and the Daedalus, which meant that the same trick wouldn’t work twice, but it at least pulled them out of energy weapons range. That victory, however was short-lived, as the three warships returned fire with their own missile salvos.
“Missile separation, we have incoming!” Kagan shouted.
“On it!” Alice shouted back, flinging herself across the bridge to land heavily at one of the defense stations. Her hands flew across the controls with blinding speed, and between her efforts and Saraea’s stomach-churning evasive actions, they managed to evade the first round of missiles entirely, but by the time the last of them fell victim to the Daedalus’ guns, another two waves were rapidly approaching.
“Time to jump node?” Kagan called out.
“Four days at present speed,” Saraea replied. “Though we could make it in twenty-seven minutes if we were to go to maximum acceleration. But that would attract-“
“Frack it,” Kagan snapped. “Max acceleration, now!”
The Daedalus surged forward, abruptly increasing the distance between themselves and the Taurens, and their missiles. The green-hides hadn’t planned on that, Kagan noted, as their missiles, realizing that they no longer had the power to reach their target, simultaneously detonated. Their burst of speed had temporarily pulled them out of even missile range, but Kagan knew that wouldn’t last as the battlecruisers began to accelerate.
“Tachyon spike!” Alice called out. “Looks like we’ve got more company. And I haven’t cleaned the good silver.”
Kagan looked up at his display as three icons representing Victorian in-system cruisers popped into existence on an intercept course. As they lacked in any sort of null-space drive system, they relied on Perth Nine’s massive null-space catapult to hurl them about the solar system. While this limited them to operations within one system, it also meant that the cruiser sized hulls packed considerably more shields &amp; firepower than the three battlecruisers behind them.
The comm. screen flared to life and the uncompromising face of a Victorian captain stared out of them.
“ITS Daedalus,” he said sternly. “You are in violation of Article Twelve, Section Seven, Sub-Section Twenty Four, Paragraph Eighty Four of-” his head suddenly snapped to something off the screen. “What the hell is that?” he demanded.
On his display, Kagan saw the three cruisers break off and begin to accelerate towards the pursuing Taurens. Moments later, missile salvos erupted from both sets of ships.
“Phew,” Kagan breathed. “Looks like we’re gonna make it ok.”
“Well, not really,” Alice informed him.
In response to his questioning raised eyebrow, she gave her display a meaningful look. “We’ve been fined,” she told him.
“Have we now?” came the rhetorical reply. “Inform them that we will be happy to pay the fine at upon our next docking with Perth Nine.”
“Happily?” Saraea inquired. “When have you happily paid for anything?”
“When am I likely to be back here again?” Kagan countered.
“Touché,” she replied. “Now, captain, my captain, we are coming up on the jump node, so do you have any particular destination in mind, or shall I just jump randomly and let the Fates decide?”
“Hmmm,” Kagan mused. “As appealing as the centre of a sun or event horizon does sound, I’m afraid we’re going to have to pick a destination beforehand.”
He pulled up the local starchart on his display, and Alice’s finger went immediately to one particular sector.
“There,” she said insistently.
“There? Nothing there but-”
“There there there there theretheretherethere!” Alice began to stamp her foot and then bang her fist against the console so hard that Kagan was compelled to grab hold of her to make her stop. Getting dents out of permaplast was difficult &amp; time-consuming, after all.
“Ok,” he agreed. “We’ll go there and see yer frackin’ nebula. Happy?”
“Yes,” she replied in a relieved sigh, before bouncing out of his lap and heading for the exit. “Now all this excitement has gone and made me sleepy, so I’m going for a nap.”
After she left, Kagan turned his eyes towards Saraea, only to find her staring back at him. “So,” she said. “She does tantrums now.”
“This does not bode well,” he replied dryly.
“For your relationship?”
“For civilization in general.”
“Heard that!” Alice’s voice drifted in from down the hallway.
With a look of astonishment, Kagan mouthed the word ‘How?’ to his friend.
“Heard that too!”

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Fun.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

too long between updates! youve got some of the most entertaining characters!

nice explody bits, too.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Critism accepted, so here's another bit. I know, it's small, but I'm knackered, at a crossroads, &amp; can't be bothered continuing until tomorrow.
Now... Here's a very important question. I've finally realized how the story is going to play out, and it focuses entirely around Kagan, Alice &amp; Saraea, will O'Shea popping in for good measure. However, if you really liked any of the other threads &amp; would like to see it continue, just say so &amp; I'll see how feasible it'd be to tie it into the endgame. Or just divert a bit to tie it off sperately.


-----------------

Some hours later, Kagan went, “Hmm…”
“Hmm?” Alice inquired, turning towards him.
“Hmm?” replied Saraea, having not heard Kagan.
“Hmm?” Alice asked her.
Kagan went “Hrmph,” and turned back to his console.
A few minutes later, he said, “I think we may have a problem.”
“Really?” asked Saraea dryly.
“No, actually, I’m sure we have a problem,” said Kagan, frowning at his console.
The two women joined him at his station, and he pointed at a set of readings on the display. “That,” he said. “Is a very bad thing.”
“Can you fix it?” asked Alice.
“Sure,” he replied. “But we’ll have to come out of null-space to do it.”
“Are you sure?” Alice wondered anxiously. “Couldn’t we maybe fix it while we’re still in null-space?”
“Sure,” said Kagan. “All I’ll have to do is stick my hand in between into a turbine spinning at four hundred thousand RPM.”
“Ok then,” she said happily, then met his stare with a confused expression until her eyebrows shot up in a moment of revelation. “Oh. Right, that’d be a problem, wouldn’t it?”
“Slightly,” he agreed.
“There’s a nice quiet looking system about ten minutes away,” Saraea told them, looking at the starcharts on the astrogation station. “There’s a good sized orbital habitat on the outer reaches of the system, but it looks to be just a mining operation. Doubt they’d mind if we stopped in to make a few repairs.”
“That ok with you, love?” Kagan asked Alice, stroking her palm with his index knuckle as he noticed the dark look in her eyes.
“Well, it’s not like it’s life threatening, is it?” While her tone was sulky, the last two words came out as a genuine question.
“It is, I’m afraid,” Kagan replied. “Left unchecked, it’ll kill us all in a few hours. Probably in a terribly messy and painful way.”
“Well, in that case I suppose it’s alright,” Alice said after a moment’s thought.
“We’ll be back on our way before you know it,” said James, plotting in the co-ordinates of the node to normal space. “Pop into this lovely quiet system, spot of paint, Bob’s yer uncle and we’re back on track. To your nebula.” He held her gaze for a moment to see if she’d reveal anything about why getting to this nebula was so important, but the expression staring back at him told him he wouldn’t be getting any information. And probably wouldn’t have liked what he heard if he did.
“Coming up on jump co-ords,” he said, making a few final course adjustments. “And jumping in three… two… one… now… Ladies &amp; me, welcome to the scenic- Sweet Holy Terra! What the hell is that?!”

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

I too am a fan AZ. Having a hoot reading your stuff.

Thx,
TT

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

We need to know what happens to Ted...

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

yeah, you cant leave us hanging on Ted.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Oh, right, Ted.

Kagan wandered onto the bridge and was vaguely surprised to see a large marble table sitting square in the middle of it.
"Ah," he said. "So we're Ted today, are we?"
The table began to writhe and twist and contract until, eventually, it was Alice standing on the bridge. That's right!!! Alice is a shapeshifter!!!! OMGWTF PWNZZZZ!!!! Alice PWNZ EVERY1!!!1!!!1!!!1!!!eleventyone!!!






























Kidding.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Anyway, here's a proper continuation, along with a promise that Ted's role in all of this will soon become clear.


“That's not quiet!” Alice cried, pointing at the colossus on the main viewer. “Well, really it is quiet, sound not being terribly prevalent in space and such bit still, I'm not pleased about this turn of events at all, nope, not one bit. However, it must be mentioned-”
Alice's monologue was interrupted as she was flung from her chair. The colossus had decided to start shooting at them, and Saraea was doing a rather admirable job of avoiding it's fire, though her evasive maneuvers were having a rather detrimental effect on the rest of the crew.
“Get us the hell out of here!” Kagan hollered as he tumbled past.
“Trying!” she yelled back.
Kagan and Alice continued to bounce and roll about the bridge for several minutes before Saraea announced: “Jumping out, now!”
There was the familiar crackle of discharging energy, then an altogether unfamiliar, but very loud, bang, and everything went black.
“Oh no we died,” Alice said sadly.
“Kagan, you there?” Saraea called out.
“Most of me,” came the reply.
“Then we're not dead,” Saraea concluded. “Because there's absolutely no way that you and me are ending up in the same afterlife.”
“Comforting,” Kagan said dryly.
“What about me?” Alice inquired. “Whose afterlife am I in?”
“I think you'll be getting your own,” Kagan informed her.
“Lonely,” she decided. “But since I don't remember inviting you into my afterlife, we must be alive.”
There was a loud thunk, a louder groan, and Kagan informed them, “Yeah, we're definitely alive.”
“What did you do?” asked Alice.
“I banged my head.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well I don't think that's a very afterlifey thing to go and do.”
“Unless we're in Hell,” Saraea pointed out.
There was another loud thunk, another louder groan, and Kagan informed them, “It's beginning to look like a distinct possibility. Although it's bloody cold for Hell.”
“And dark,” Alice said. “Very very very dark. I don't like it. Hold on, I'm going to do something about it.”
Kagan and Saraea waited in the black silence for what seemed like a very long time before Kagan spoke up.
“When?” he inquired softly.
“I'm trying,” she replied, sounding as though she was genuinely trying very hard at something. “It's not working... give me a moment...” She exhaled suddenly, inhaled deeply and cursed savagely.
“What exactly are you trying to do over there?” Saraea inquired, sounding rather concerned.
“Glow in the dark,” Alice replied matter-of-factly.
“Can you do that?” Kagan asked.
“Doesn't look like it,” she replied dejectedly. “I guess I better go find a light switch.”
There was a loud thunk, a louder groan, and Saraea snickered.
“That wasn't me,” Kagan informed her.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Sorry sweety, are you ok?”
“Yes,” came the reply. “I just tripped over something strange.”
“That's not good,” Kagan said slowly. “What did it feel like?”
“My foot,” Alice told them.
“Right,” Kagan said. “Well in all your tripping over your own feet, did you manage to find a light switch?"
“No, but I did find this,” she replied. There was a small 'beep' followed by an audible announcement from the ship that emergency power had been activated. Shortly after that, dim lights finally illuminated the bridge.
Kagan found himself lying underneath a console, staring up at what appeared to be an imprint of his forehead in the bottom of it's casing. He slid out from under the console, rose to his feet and took a couple steps towards the command chair before he paused, turned, and administered a good kick to the console. He plunked himself down, and looked over at Saraea, who was draped comfortably across a chair in front of the sensor console. Which was rather odd, he thought, considering she'd been at the helm the last he'd seen her. Looking across to Alice, he saw her still scrambling to her feet at the engineering console, one hand still over the emergency power activation switch. Which was also odd, he realized, since that last he'd seen of her she'd been on the opposite side of the bridge. Deciding he didn't really want to know how they'd gotten there, he swiped at his itching forehead only to see his hand come back dusted with dried blood.
Saraea studied him for a moment and then slid gracefully out of her chair.
“I'll get something from Medical for that,” she told him.
He grunted an acknowledgment as he finally began to notice the throbbing pain in his head. As he began to run diagnostics on the ship, a strange thought surfaced in his mind.
“Alice, my dear,” he said slowly. “Was I rather quiet for any period of time after you heard me bang my head?”
“Nope,” she replied, engrossed in diagnostics of her own. “You kept right on babbling away.”
“Hmmm...” he pondered. “In that case, I must have received this wound to my forehead earlier, yet I don't remember it.”
Alice looked up from her console briefly as the same thought struck her. She pressed a few buttons on her console and then looked back at him.
“It's been eight hours and forty three minutes since the very loud bang,” she said.
“Were we unconscious for all that time?” Kagan wondered.
“Hard to say,” she replied. “With it being all dark and all, can't tell if eyes are open or closed, if thoughts are conscious or dreams, very hard indeed to say.”
“I was unconscious for seven hours and sixteen minutes,” Saraea said, re-entering the bridge. “Following a significant energy discharge caused by overloading systems, which in turn was a result of us getting hit just as we entered null-space. Yourself and Kagan were out for eight hours, twelve minutes, forty-two seconds and eight hours, eleven minutes, fifty-two seconds, respectively.”
“How'd you know that?” Alice demanded, sounding almost indignant that for once she wasn't the bearer of strangely accurate information.
“Very, very accurate internal clock,” Saraea told her. “And both of you made rather funny noises when you came to, which made the whole thing rather easy."
“And during the time you were awake before us, you didn't do anything about the lights, or us for that matter, because...” Kagan let the sentence trail off into a question.
“You were both breathing comfortably, there was no immediate danger, and – I was comfy,” Saraea shrugged. "So,” she continued. “Have we figured out what's going on, and where we are? I'm presuming that we made it into null-space successfully, since neither of you look like floating clouds of vapor to me.”
“Aye, we made it alright,” said Kagan. “We're currently flying arseways through the Tigga band, but don't ask me how we got there.”
“Interesting,” Saraea said as she began wiping the dried blood from his forehead with a moist towel. “Which would put us, where, exactly?”
“About twenty minutes outside the Fyron System,” Alice said darkly. “Very far away from where we're supposed to be.”
“Aye,” said Kagan, trying to keep an eye on his console as Saraea applied a dermal patch to his injury. “But we'll definitely need to stop by there before we go anywhere else to put my ship back together. And yes,” he added, cutting off Alice's objection. “We do absolutely have to. One firm nudge and the poor girl's likely to fall to pieces.”
Having finished tending to Kagan, Saraea made her way towards the helm, pausing as she noticed Alice looking around the bridge with an expression of total confusion.
“He means the ship, sweety,” Saraea murmured.
While she'd intended to be helpful, Saraea realized she'd just made Alice even more confused, but decided to leave well enough alone rather than risk making things even worse. She sat herself down and began the slow job of coaxing the ship into facing the right direction. It didn't matter terribly much which way they were facing in null-space, but making transit in any direction except forward was terribly hard on any ship, let alone one that had just had a number of holes punched in it. That being said, she knew she couldn't go too easy on the poor Daedalus, otherwise they'd overshoot the Fyron jump nexus and have to start the whole thing all over again.
Alice, having never heard of the Fyron System, busied herself with looking up information about it in the ship's database.
“Huh,” she said. “Are we going to Sheol or Zellund?”
“Zellund,” Kagan replied. “Why?”
“Just curious,” she replied. “It says here that on Sheol all the women are um... genetically enhanced, never wear clothes and average three sexual partners a day. I was just wondering why you don't want to go there. It seems quite odd to me.”
“Keep reading,” Kagan advised her.
“Oh,” she said a few minutes later, sounding quite disappointed. “No men? None at all? Not even one? But how do they... you know?”
“Sheol happens to be the galaxy's largest importer of sperm,” Kagan deadpanned.
“Interesting,” Alice murmured, looking off space as she contemplated the ramifications of a planet without Y chromosomes.
“He's having you on,” Saraea said with a chuckle. “Keep reading.”
“Oh,” Alice said a few minutes later. “Genetic enhancements... They do it with their... huh.”
“My kind of planet,” Saraea said with a wolfish grin.
“Huh,” Alice said again, this time staring at Saraea and contemplating the significance of this latest revelation.
Fifteen minutes later, Saraea had managed to bring the ship around and they were slowly dropping through the null-space bands in preparation for the softest transit they could possibly manage.
Within moments of dropping into normal space, there were four Fyronian heavy cruisers approaching them at high velocity. Saraea had managed to pull off an extremely soft transit, which as far as the Fyronian Navy was concerned was a sign someone was trying to sneak into their system.
“Fire up the emergency transponder,” Kagan told Alice. “We don't want these nice folks blasting us into tiny little pieces for trying to sneak up on their lovely ladies.”
“This one doesn't look like my head neither,” Alice muttered as she activated the transponder.
Moments later, the lead cruiser hailed them, and an extremely attractive, well proportioned redhead appeared on the main viewer.
“This is JNS Cerberus hailing ITS Daedalus,” she said authoritatively. “What is your situation?”
“We encountered an unknown hostile outside the Patrocian System,” Kagan replied. “We've taken heavy damage and are in need of urgent assistance.”
“Acknowledged,” the Cerberus' captain said. “We will escort you to the Zellund Shipyards where you can make arrangements for repairs, though I would recommend you try stay planetside. The orbital platforms have gotten rather crowded ever since someone decided to install telescopes in all the Sheol facing viewports.” She spoke with the resignation of someone who had lived with such behavior her whole life, but never quite managed to get used to it.
“Thank you, Cerberus,” Kagan replied, suppressing a grin. “We're setting a course for the Zellund shipyards now.”
The main viewer blinked off as the Cerberus cut their comm link.
“Friendly folks, aren't they?” Kagan muttered.
“Yeah,” Saraea agreed. “But I still totally would.”
Kagan's witty reply was interrupted as the main view flared back on, revealing the still-unnamed ship's captain looking a fair bit more friendly. “I have just relayed your information to Naval Command,” she said briskly. “And I have been informed that Command is willing to cover the expense of repairing your ship in return for all sensor data pertaining to the hostile you encountered in the Patrocian System.”
“Sounds like a good deal to me,” Kagan informed her. “We'll begin transmission as soon as we're within range.”
“Thank you, captain,” she replied, and disappeared as abruptly as she'd appeared.

True to his word, Kagan transmitted the sensor logs of their brief encounter to the Fyronian Naval Command as soon as he was able, and received a prompt reply containing docking instructions for them to receive their repairs. This was followed by an estimate from the repair yard that it would take the better part of two weeks in order to repair all the damage he'd reported. In the mean time, he was advised, the JNC would be providing them with a courtesy planetary shuttle and a comfortable hotel for them to use at their leisure during their stay on Sheol. Within four hours, they'd left the Daedalus in the caring hands of the Navy repair docks and shuttled down to the planet. Saraea advised him she had some things to do and people to see, and bade the farewell after agreeing to meet up with them in a few days time. Kagan and Alice, for their part, decided to go explore the wonderful sights of Zellund's capitol city's renowned Keatchem district.
They spent several hours wandering through various shops and markets, Kagan having finally yielded to the idea that Alice really should have clothing of her own. After a long and seemingly fruitless search, they stumbled upon a little store that just happened to have exactly what Alice had been looking for hanging in the front window. After a bit of cajoling, Kagan agreed to buy it for her and was enjoying his reward of a proper hug when he caught the eye of a passer by. He nodded at Kagan briefly and smiled as he passed by. Kagan was still trying to work out who he was and why he couldn't place a supposedly familiar face when a bolt of energy ripped through Alice's small body and slammed into his chest, hurling him against the wall. The two of them collapsed into a pile, and with his fading strength he managed to wrap his arms around Alice.
“Ouch,” she whispered, looking at the scorch mark on his chest. “That looks sore.”
“It's nothing,” he murmured. “Nothing at all.”
Then, the tight grip they had on one and other loosened, and they died.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

sell it with sex, baby. sell it with sex.

while "oh no we died" had me in stitches, there does seem to be some scruffy continuity in this one. one of the girls had quite a bit of awake time and didnt manage to find emergency power or lights with it.

Another one woke up about 15 minutes before Kagan, so his response to (what you would presume is her imediate reaction) "oh no we died" seems misplaced. he should have been alseep for that.

but im just being picky. the flow and witicisms are, as always, superb.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

AgentZero: “Oh,” Alice said a few minutes later. “Genetic enhancements... They do it with their... huh.”

Ears?

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Puke, thanks for pointing out the scruffy continuity. I've fixed it up, fortified Kagan's constitution by having him wake up a bit earlier, and thrown in a little explanation of why Saraea didn't do anything about the lights. Of course, what she was really up to is for her to know and you to wonder.

Hunpecked, you don't want to know.

No, really. You don't.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

An interesting OT thought: When I read stories that are this engaging, I usually start to visualize the characters in my head. For some reason, on this one, I'm getting really good environment images but I have no faces yet for the main characters...

AZ, have you done any "preliminary casting" in your head for when this gets made into a movie? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

TT

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Nope, you're gonna have to come up with the faces all by your lonesome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If you don't have at least a vague idea what Alice &amp; Saraea look like, then you haven't been paying attention (naughty!) as they were both described when they were introduced, though I admit I haven't done a great job of reinforcing that description. That'll come later, once the story's done &amp; I'm into the editing (shudder).

If it helps, I always pictured Admiral Angus McArthur as looking a bit like B5's John Sheridan when he had a beard, and Admiral Ivanov Korjev looks kinda like his buddy Jack Maynard, also with a beard (the captain of the big ole explorer ship).
If, for some reason you've never seen B5, a Google image search of Bruce Boxleitner and Russ Tamblyn should sort you out nicely.

Aside from that, can't help you much. Except for the fact that Alice is a redhead now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

More!



Orrin Pendlebrook hurried around a corner and into a dark alley. Towards the back of the alley, he came across an industrial grade incinerator bin. Such things weren't normally found in back alleys, they tended to make their homes in very secure areas of large industrial complexes, usually with a few friends and specially designed shutes leading into their business ends. To find one that could be accessed simply by lifting a lid and tossing in incriminating evidence was almost unheard of. And yet, somehow, most conveniently, such a rarity had found its way into the alleyway in which Orin now found himself. He hurried over to it, lifted the lid and tossed in his pistol, facial morphnet, gloves and overcoat, then let out a sigh of relief. He was safe. No one would be able to point to him as the trigger man, and any other evidence had quite recently been atomized.
It was a pity, he mused. The girl had been terribly pretty. It was a good thing, he decided, that she'd presented her back to him when time came to shoot. He'd studied her picture ever since the assignment had been given to him, and he'd rather fallen in love with her smiling face. Had he been forced to meet those lovely green eyes, he might have hesitated, and hesitations had a way of being fatal in a job like his.
It was a pity, too, that that Kagan character had to die as well. Orin remembered seeing vids of him at the end of the war, and wasn't very pleased with himself for having assassinated a war hero. Still, his instructions had stated that Kagan was 'optional' and knowing that he was dead gave Orin some measure of relief. Having an angry soldier out for his blood was the sort of thing that made it difficult to sleep at night. But with Kagan dead, he didn't have to worry about that, and with the startling amount of money he was being paid for the job, he would be sleeping very well indeed for some time to come.
It was about this time that Orin became he was not alone. A hooded figure emerged slowly from the inky darkness, walking towards him with great deliberation.
“Frack off!,” he shouted. “Another step and you'll end up dead!”
“No, Mr. Pendlebrook,” the figure replied, pulling back it's hood. “You know you don't pose any real threat to me, now don't you?”
The figure stepped into a pool of light and Orin tried to swallow, his throat suddenly very dry. A legend stood before him, a veritable angel of destruction, chaos and death. And Orin realized that he did indeed pose absolutely no threat to her whatsoever. In the darkness he couldn't make out her eyes, only two large black holes where they should be, and when she bared her teeth in a humorless smile, he could swear he was staring at a living skull rather than any living creature. Saraea Azen herself stood before him, contemplating him much as one might contemplate an insect scuttling across the floor, idly toying with notions of crushing it beneath ones foot.
“Deathchild,” he whispered breathlessly.
Saraea gave him a brief nod of acknowledgement.
“To.. to what do I owe this honour?” he asked nervously.
“Honour?” Saraea scoffed. “Try horror.” She paused then for a moment, muttered something under her breath, then continued, “You murdered two very close friends of mine today Mr. Pendlebrook, did you know that?”
“I don't know what you're talking about?” he said quickly. “I haven't murdered anyone. You don't have enough evidence- no jury in the galaxy would-”
Saraea interrupted him with a laugh, a truly evil sound. “Do you really think I'm going to put you on trial, Mr. Pendlebrook?” she asked harshly. “Since you're obviously of less than stellar intelligence, let me explain to you how this is going to work. I am going to ask you questions. You are going to answer them to my satisfaction, otherwise you will know pain, you will know fear, and then you will die. First: Who hired you?”
“I have no idea what you're-”
Saraea didn't move, didn't even twitch, but suddenly every nerve in Orin's body was on fire with the heat of a thousand suns. He screamed in agony and collapsed, writhing on the floor in a desperate, though vain attempt to escape the pain.
“Scream all you like,” she told him. “No one can hear you.”
The pain went on, washing over him in waves of agony, rising to the point where he thought he was about to slip away into merciful unconsciousness, then receding to the point of almost being bearable before building up again and crashing down on top of him. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the pain was gone, and he found himself quivering on the ground, curled into a ball at Saraea's feet.
“Now then, Mr. Pendlebrook,” she said conversationally. “Are we feeling a little more talkative, or would you like to find out what level two feels like?”
“Anything,” he gasped. “I'll tell you anything, just don't, please don't do that again.”
“I'm glad to see you're being reasonable,” she said soothingly. “I'm really not asking for very much. Just the answers to a couple of questions, and then I'll be on my way. I've no real quarrel with you, it's those who hired you that I'm angry with.”
“I don't know much,” Orin gasped, still reeling from the agony that had somehow been inflicted upon him. “I was hired by a group calling themselves The Council.”
“Names?” she inquired, with just the right hint of menace to make him break out in a cold sweat.
“I don't know,” he admitted honestly, staggering to his feet and leaning against a wall. “They only ever referred to each other as numbers. A guy called Two did most of the talking, Three gave me the details of the job, and there was another one, Fourteen, who didn't say much except that it was vital that I complete the job and that Very Bad Things would happen to me if I failed.”
“Ironic, then,” Saraea said dryly. “That you succeeded so brilliantly, and yet Very Bad Things have still befallen you. Now, where can I find this Council?”
“I don't know,” he replied, shaking his head. “I never-”
Saraea sighed with disappointment. “It's a pity, really,” she said slowly. “That the memory of pain fades so quickly.”
Orin suddenly felt almost nostalgic for the pain she'd initially inflicted upon him as agony beyond comprehension ripped through his body. He opened his mouth to scream, but couldn't make a sound. His eyes bulged in their sockets, feeling like at any moment they'd burst out of his head. In an instinctive attempt to escape the cause of this agony, his body twitched and spasmed and he staggered about the alleyway, somehow managing to retain his footing. Somewhere through the mist of anguish, he heard the voice of Death murmur, “You know I'd grown terribly fond of Alice. She was a lovely girl, and you killed her. That makes you a bad man. And bad men deserve level three.”
The pain suddenly shot up to a form of such agony that Orin actually relaxed for a second, sure that unconsciousness would soon claim him. When it didn't, his mouth opened again, and his time a thin, whispered scream squeezed it's way out of his tormented throat, before slowly growing to a ear-shattering howl of pain and despair. His bowels and bladder released themselves, but he didn't even notice, all that existed for him was the pain. The alleyway, his tormentor, even his own body melted away and all that was left was an unending sea of pain. And then, once again, the pain was gone just as suddenly as it had come. He slumped against the wall, half sobbing, half gasping. Saraea stood watching him impassively, waiting until he'd regained some measure of composure before repeated her question.
“They took me to a building,” he wheezed in reply. “There was a large room at the top of it, where there were twenty one men seated. They spoke with me, told me that this was much more important then any normal whack job, how imperative it was for me to succeed. I don't know if that's where they're based, but it's all I know. Please-”
“Where is this building?” Saraea interrupted.
“Downtown,” he said shakily. “Across the road from the big MechaCorp building.”
“Thank you Mr. Pendlebrook,” she replied, sounding almost grateful. “That will be all. You do try to have a nice day now.”
And with that, she turned and walked out of the alley. Orin watched her go, a deep hatred beginning to seethe inside him. He pushed himself off the wall to stand upright and swore to himself that no matter how long it took, no matter how much it cost, or what had to be sacrificed, he would track Saraea down and kill her. He glanced down to check if him soiling himself had left any outward trace on his trousers, and only then noticed the large knife protruding from his chest.
“Oh,” he said with profound realization before he crumpled to the ground.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Interesting. Killing the main characters. Ballsy. Ill bet they come back with amnesia. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Good writing, keep it up.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Nah, they aren't dead... "and then the darkness overcame him" is just supposed to make you think "dead."

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Hmm... That's a good point actually. I'll have to rewrite that bit to make the fact that he's dead a bit more clear. That's the problem with being all poetical and stuff. Lets people make their own minds up about things.
How about... "And then he died." Blunt, to the point, no wriggle room.
Or maybe "And then he wasn't alive anymore." Also blunt and to the point, though there's a marginal amount of wriggle room if you want to debate the exact meaning of 'alive.'
"And then, the tight grip they had on one and other loosened, and they died." I quite like this one. A bit more poetical, plus it's quite obvious that they both die.

Agent Zero scurries off to work on the rewrite

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

And yet again, more! Figured it was time for a little more boom boom. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif


Admiral McArthur gripped his command chair tightly to avoid being ignomiously dumped out of it as his station shuddered from another direct hit. As he turned his head, the station's attacker disappeared in a flash of light, utterly annihilated by a blast from the fortresses main battery that continued onwards to cripple an enemy dreadnought. Still, crippled or not, it still took another four hits to finish the ship off completely. They were built tough, the admiral noted, not quite as tough as Terran ships, but tough nonetheless. And there were a lot of them. More than a lot, a veritable horde of warships swarmed about his command. Still, the network of battle stations built around the jump nexus had been designed to hold up against the entire Tauran Navy, and while several of his stations had taken severe damage, he'd yet to lose one yet. Although, he had to admit, part of that was down to the fact that once a station had been damaged to the point where it no longer posed a threat, the unknown attackers shifted their targeting to a station that was actively firing. And, McArthur thought, despite many reminders as to the downside to that strategy, they continued to follow it. He grinned as one such reminder wiped out an entire battlegroup as Station 37 got her short range weapons back online and proceeded to tear apart anything near her with vengeful fury. His chair lurched again, and this time he barely managed to hang on. Looking up at the damage display, he was confronted with a sea of red. The station's forward shields had failed completely, her armor had been shredded and barely a quarter of her weapons were still operational. Her aft section, however, was another matter.
“Rotate one-eighty,” ordered Admiral McArthur. “And shunt power from forward weapon's systems to shields and damage control.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman confirmed. “Rotating one-eighty now.”
A furious babble erupted on the bridge as gunnery stations that had been idle due to lack of guns to co-ordinate suddenly became active again, and the gunners began tossing targeting priorities around their section with all the casual banter that went with it. To a less informed ear, it sounded terribly unprofessional, as actual target priorities seemed to get as much, or even less attention than discourses on the personal hygiene of the gunners mother, yet in truth all of what was said was a code known only to the gunners themselves, and more to the point, it was a brutally efficient code. As no doubt, the crew of an enemy dreadnought squadron would surely attest, had they been more than a cloud of vapour following a particularly crude description by the chief gunner of his second's father's genitalia.
“Tachyon spike!” one of the sensor operators cried over the din. “Almost off the scale, something massive is coming in!”
Despite knowing that there was no possible way reinforcements could be coming through that jump node, part of McArthur couldn't help but hope, that maybe, somehow the new arrivals might be something other than violently hostile. Moments later, his hopes were crushed as a vessel of unimaginable size forced it's way into normal space.
“By the Nine Divine Whores of Kantarl,” whispered the McArthur.
“Ship configuration seems to match that of hostile forces,” the sensor officer reported. “But it's just much, much bigger than anything we've seen so far.”
“Station Ninety-Seven, code Omega!” called out the comms officer. And seconds later, “Station Ninety-Eight, code Omega!”
McArthur grimaced. The two dying stations held only a small crew, being more lookout stations than actual fortresses, and had been passed over by the enemy in their desperate bid to break through the system's defenses. The new arrival, however, seemed more than willing to spare a little attention to them.
“Station Ninety-Six, code Omega!” cried a different comms officer. “Station Ninety-Five reporting heavy fire.”
“Well,” McArthur murmured. “Looks like they've finally played the ace up their sleeve. Now it's time for us to play ours.”
Turning to the comms officer, he instructed, “Contact stations Two and Three, order them to target the new arrival and fire when ready.”
The two stations flanking McArthur's command station, untouched by enemy fire given the fact that they were the only stations not actively firing, and the fact that neither of them sported any discernible weapons, aside from a few rows of point defense turrets, began to move slowly. At first, they only seem to be rotating to point their narrowest end towards the colossal enemy ship, but as they did so, pieces of the stations began to rearrange themselves, moving outwards, upwards and downwards until both stations had taken on the unmistakable shape of two singularly massive guns floating in space. Their movement slowed as they stopped orienting themselves and began tracking their target. Soon, their movement had slowed to the state of being barely perceptible, and far at the back of the stations, massive capacitors began to glow red, becoming brighter and brighter until they glowed a blood-tinged white. The stations soon were became completely engulfed in light as more and more power was poured into their single main weapons system. And then, abruptly, the light vanished. An observer would have just enough time to wonder exactly where the light had gone to, before the answer became abundantly clear to all as a massive white beam of energy blasted its way out of the barrel of the two space stations, casually cut a swath through anything in it's way, and slammed into the alien juggernaut. For a moment, but only a moment, it looked like the behemoth was going to hold up against the vast torrent of energy being poured into it, but then, inevitability, it broke, and the twin beams of light tore through the ship and out the other side. They then began slowly moving about, carving the goliath apart until they hit something critical and the entire ship blew apart in a galaxy-shuddering explosion that wiped out scores of alien ships that had been flying too close.
Almost as one, the surviving ships turned and ran, but the route back to the jump point was a gauntlet of battle stations all waiting for their turn to tear into the attackers, and barely a quarter of the ships made it to safety.
McArthur sat back heavily in his chair. “Status report,” he called into the sudden, eerie silence.
There was a moment of frenzied activity as individual stations rushed to complete preliminary damage reports, and a few minutes later his bruised and battered exec handed him a list of the damaged, destroyed and dead.
“We took heavy losses this time, sir,” he said quietly. “Given a few days to make repairs, we might, maybe weather another attack if we're extraordinarily lucky.”
“Reinforcements?” McArthur inquired.
“The Raezel is en route, along with the entire Fourth and Fifth Fleets, but they're still four days off. The Ninth Fleet should be here tomorrow, but they've taken heavy damage from running engagements and will need the better part of a week for repairs before they could be considered combat-ready.”
“Well,” McArthur mused. “We hurt 'em bad this time. That's the first time we've seen one of their planet-killers come through here. Hopefully we've given them enough of a bloody nose that they'll hold off on another assault long enough for us to get our legs back underneath us.”
“Sirs? If I may interrupt?” Lieutenant Commander Gomez, a small, petite blonde from Intelligence approached the admiral, a datapad in hand. “Station Twenty-Four managed to get some in depth scans of the hostile ships done while her weapons were out. We've just finished the analysis and though you might want to have a look.”
She handed the pad to McArthur, and stood in silence as he read the report. As he reached the end, his eyes jumped ahead to a single word, the only word, really, that the report needed to contain.
“No...” he whispered.
Gomez nodded. “It's confirmed, sir. They're back.”

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

"Marvelous!"

[i](...better than "Weeeeeeee!" ?)

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

A criticism, I don't like the changes you made to the death scene. I liked it better before. Room for speculation is fine. The ponderings of your fans doesn't change what happened, and curiosity keeps people reading. Besides, it just sounded better originally.

Another criticism, poetical isnt a word, the word is poetic.

I enjoyed your boom boom. It was good. Space combat is always fun. Nice cliff hanger. Keep up the fun.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

I'm with JAF on all points. And again, "Wheeeeeee!"

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Criticism taken... However perhaps what I didn't make clear in my previous post is the fact that I don't want there to be any room for speculation as to whether or not Kagan and Alice are alive. They're dead, and while I'm not terribly happy with the wording either, it'll do until my muse prompts me with something more eloquent.

And yes, I know poetical isn't proper English, it's just a form of bastardized English that I'm rather fond of, but criticism accepted, I'll try to be less poetical in future. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Lastly, I've kinda gotten to a point in the story where I need to talk a few things over with someone because the story could progress in one of two radically different ways, and I honestly don't know which one to go with. And don't anybody tell me 'go with whichever feels best' because they both feel pretty damn good, but they're also mutually exclusive. So... If anyone out there feels like having a chat, preferably with a writing bent themselves, though not necessarily, but is willing to have the ending spoilt for them, though in doing so help ensure that it's a damn good ending, PM me with an MSN/ICQ/whatever and we can go from there.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Ok then, go with whatever makes a better ending.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Well, that's the problem. They're both the same ending, but very different ways of getting there.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

pick the one on the right!

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

I was afraid you'd say that

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Bring Us More Pie!

A champagne cork ricocheted off the roof and landed neatly in someone's outstretched glass. The room erupted into peals of drunken laughter as the victim of fate tried vainly to fish the bobbing cork out from his glass, his impaired co-ordination causing him to mostly spill wine all over himself. His antics drew more and more laughter until finally, a well aimed cork popped him square in the nose and he toppled to the ground. A brief silence descended upon the room, but only lasted as long as the first snort of poorly contained laughter. The unlucky man finally pulled himself to his feet, grabbed a bottle off the table and held it aloft.
“To success!” he declared loudly. “Beyond our wildest expectations!”
The cheers were punctuated by the sound of more corks popping as the champagne flowed liberally. The happy, drunken conversation ebbed slightly as the doors opened, then loud cheers erupted once again as a tall, stunningly beautiful young woman entered the room. She wore a full length white trench coat wrapped tightly around her that accentuated the curve of her breasts and hips magnificently, black gloves and matching black boots. Her olive skin offset her light blonde hair, and none were able to look away from her large, strikingly blue eyes. She entered the room confidently, with a sensuous sway to her hips, made her way to the table at the centre of the room and stepped up onto it.
“Gentlemen,” she purred softly. “If you will be so kind as to be seated, the... entertainment will begin.”
In all the years that they had been meeting, never had they assembled at the table so quickly as they did now, staring upwards with eager faces, smiling puppy dog smiles at her as her lips curved gently upwards. As soon as they were all seated, she began to move, swaying her hips slowly in rhythm to unheard music. She began to move faster and faster, her movements smooth and confident, graceful. Suddenly, she flung open her trench coat, and her audience gasped at the sight of two automatic plasma bolters strapped to her chest. Smiling broadly, she drew the bolters from their holsters, held them above her head and began to slowly gyrate her hips as she lowered herself almost to her knees, then raised herself up again, then began to move slowly downwards again. There was a smattering of applause as the audience recognized the bit: They were dangerous men, they enjoyed danger, and having their stripper armed just made the show that much more exciting. On her way back up again, she paused, threw her pistols into the air, let her trench coat slide to the ground and caught the guns again easily to another smattering of applause. No sooner were the weapons back in her hands than she suddenly launched herself high into the air, flipping head over heels and rotating around her centre axis at the same time. Her plasma bolters snarled viciously, and when her feet again touched down at the table, all those around it were dead, save the one at the head of the table, who found himself looking down a red hot barrel. His eyes slowly moved up to face the beautiful assassin, and his lips managed to form the words, “Why?”
The killer smiled charmingly back at him, and as she did so, her hair blackened, her dark skin paled to white and her liquid blue eyes decayed to the deepest shade of black.
“You know why,” she whispered. “Bastard.” And with that, she fired a single round into his heart, hopped off the table and strode out of the room.
The man known only as One watched her go, paralyzed from the shock of being shot, knowing he was dying, and knowing just as well that there was nothing that could be done about it. At first, he wondered if it was his dying mind playing tricks on him, but it soon became apparent that the table before him was indeed twisting and deforming itself, spilling plates and glasses and bottles onto the laps of those seated around it, except for one untouched glass of champagne that managed to stay upright as the table went through all manner of contortions, eventually resolving itself into the figure of a man, holding the glass of wine in one hand. One stared in wonderment at this apparition that stood before him, the face that most had attained legendary, almost mythological significance amongst the organization.
“Zero,” whispered One. “You're real... You're here... You're-”
“Terribly disappointed,” interrupted the other, sipping gently at the champagne. “I look around me and what do I see? Nothing but failure. The grand organization I brought into being reduced to nothing by it's own incompetence.”
“Not... our... fault...” whispered One. “Even we... cannot stop... a Deathchild.”
“No,” agreed Zero solemnly. “But I wouldn't have expected you to. I would, however, have expected you to avoid giving a Deathchild good cause for vengeance.” He shook his head sadly. “It's my own fault, really. I stood idly by and watched as you all drifted away from my teachings, as you became so blinded by your own greed and petty concerns that when the object of your entire existence was revealed, you couldn't even see it for what it was, instead branding a threat. You were supposed to protect her,” he hissed, then paused and took a good look at One. “Of course, you're not listening to a word I'm saying, seeing as you're dead and all, which is a terrible pity, really. You see, now there's no one left for me to share the delightful irony of this whole situation with.” He sighed softly. “I suppose I could always catch up with the Deathchild, I'm sure she'd appreciate the irony. Yes,” he said, taking a deep draught of champagne. “I'm sure she would appreciate it indeed.”

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

LOL! Nice one. It closes everything neatly, but at the same time opens up so many more questions.

Thanks AZ, I'm still smiling from that.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

mmm... pie.

i dont quite feel wrapped up yet, though. it isnt revealed who the attacking fleets are, unless i just havent been paying attention. nor does it really explain what the purpose of our ex-supergirl was. again, unless i havent been paying attention.

I think this is just the prelude to the wrap up.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

It can't be wrapped up:

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

You were saying....



Kaelan O'Shea stared at his bedside monitor in disbelief. Barely half an hour ago, he'd received a brief, terse message from Saraea telling him that Kagan and Alice were dead, and now this. He shook his head and squinted at the screen, convinced what he was seeing was a trick of the eye, a sick joke, anything but true. But all the authentication codes checked out fine, no matter how unbelievable the news was, there was no questioning the authenticity of the message. Kaelan reached for the the glass sitting on his bedside table, and, finding it empty, cursed loudly and pushed himself out of bed in search of something with which to fill it. The message had been sent by a pretty, young comms officer aboard Admiral McArthur's command station. It was a copy of a dispatch being sent all over the fleet, but what was contained within it was-
“Hey...” The prone figure in his bed stirred sleepily. The petite brunette he'd picked up on his last port of call sat up on the bed and stared at him drowsily. “What's wrong?” she asked, noticing the expression on his face.
“End of the feckin world,” Kaelan replied, waving a hand at the bedside monitor.
“Can I look?” she asked.
“Yeah, work away,” he replied, trying to remember her name. Karen? Kelly? Kaelan? Yeah, that sounded familiar. Oh... Right. He groaned softly at the load taxing his mind and tried vainly to push his eyeballs further back into his head. He wandered out of the bedroom and stumbled over a bottle of scotch.
“Well look at you!” he declared happily, scooping it up off the ground and holding it up to eye level. “Thought you were getting away did ya? Back inside with ye!”
He marched back into the bedroom triumphantly to find Katherine? Kristin. Yes! That was it! Kristin was curled up in a tight ball, staring fearfully at the monitor.
“It can't be,” she whispered tearful. “Not again, it can't be.”
“Aye, but it is,” Kaelan said, pouring two large glasses of scotch. “So drink up and enjoy yourself, for only the Nine Whores know how much longer it'll last.
The girl took a glass with a shaky hand and drank deeply as Kaelan settled himself in beside her to run through the dispatch again. It started out with a thin line of text stating that the old enemy, that which had nearly wiped out the Second Dynasty, that which was supposedly exterminated, had returned. Following that eye-catching proclamation, there were several pages of sensor analysis, comparing recent scans of ships that had been attacking the Imperium all across it's borders to scans taken thousands of years ago, and if that wasn't enough to satisfy the reader, it ended with footage from a battle showing a gutted ship spewing bodies out into space, and whoever had taken the footage had managed to get a good clean shot of the faces of those being sucked out. One look at one of those skull-like, demonic faces was all Kaelan needed to convince him beyond a shadow of a doubt. That horrific visage was burned into the minds of all school children as the personification of all that was truly evil.
“What are we going to do?” asked Kristin, interrupting his musings.
“Well,” Kaelan said slowly. “We are first going to get very, very drunk. Then, when we wake up, we're going to stop off at the nearest spaceport, buy up a lifetimes worth of supplies, and get the bloody hell out of Terran space.”
“Where will we go?”
“Doesn't much matter,” he replied. “The Second Dynasty barely survived the last invasion and they were thousands of years ahead of us. The Imperium doesn't stand a chance, that report says as much, so the further away we get from here, the better.”
The following morning, Kaelan awoke to find himself on the bridge to the sound of a console beeping. He pushed himself out of the command chair, and stumbled over to the source of the noise, only to find that it was the communications terminal with a message confirming that all supplies had been loaded, and he was cleared to depart. With a fuzzy minded scowl, he looked over the manifest of cargo that had been transferred onto his ship. Several lifetimes worth of fine food, drink and medical supplies now filled his cargo hold. He scratched his head blearily and was still trying to figure out how this had all happened when Kristin strolled casually onto the bridge.
“You decided there was no time like the present after your third bottle,” she informed him after taking one look at the confused expression on his face. “So you came up here, sorted everything out, and passed out as soon as they told you it'd take seven hours to prepare everything and get it loaded.”
“Oh,” he said slowly. “Well, in that case, is there anything you want before we go?”
Kristin, a social outcast and only child to deceased parents, shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “I'm all done here.”
Kaelan reflected for a moment, then decided, “Me too.”
With that, he brought the ship into the air, rising higher faster and faster, blazing through the nighttime sky until they broke free of the atmosphere, and soon after, broke free of the constraints of normal space and into the limitless freedom of null-space.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

LMAO

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

nice. very nice.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Mwahahahahahaaaaaa!



Darkness. Confusion. Pain. A shrill, skull numbing shriek. Silence. A dull rumble. The sensation of movement. And then, light. Bright, white, all consuming light. A low groan. Movement within the light, black shapes moving about. Then, colour. A splash of red resolved into a tousled mop of hair, pale skin, sparkling green eyes, a smiling mouth.
“Rise and shine, sleepy head!” The words, spoken cheerfully, at first had no significance. Their meaning came slowly, dripping one syllable at a time into his consciousness. When the whole sentence had been properly digested, he groaned loudly and pulled himself into a seated position. He looked about slowly, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. To his right there was the girl, he was sure her name would come to him eventually. To his left, there was a body on a slab. Beyond that, more bodies. He looked back over to his right, beyond the girl was an empty slab, beyond that, a human shape crumpled on the ground, and beyond it, more bodies on slabs. He too, he realized suddenly was seated on a slab. And more to the point-
“I'm naked,” he said, his tongue thick in his mouth.
“Me too,” the girl- Alice, his mind informed him belatedly- replied cheerfully.
He took a proper look at her, noting that she was indeed naked, but far more noticeable was her pale, colourless flesh, even her lips lacked any sort of colour.
“You look awful pale,” he told her.
“I know,” she said with a small frown. “It's distressing. And I feel tingly. Do you feel tingly?”
Kagan flexed his hands slowly and grimaced at the pins-and-needles sensation that shot up and down his arms. He shifted slightly and gasped as the sensation exploded all over his body.
“Blimey,” he muttered. “Yeah, I feel... tingly, all right. Who's the fella on the floor?”
Alice glanced over at the body lying near her feet. “Dunno,” she said with a shrug. “I opened my eyes just as he was about to slice me open with a great big saw. I told him I'd really appreciate it if he didn't, and well, he didn't handle it too well and toppled over.”
“Huh,” was all Kagan could manage, his mind still sluggish, his body still not feeling as though it belonged to him. “What... happened?” he asked a few minutes later.
“How do you mean?” Alice called back, having wandered off to explore the room.
“You... I... Died. Didn't we?”
“I'm absolutely sure and certain we did. Dead as door nails we were. And now we're not. Don't think about it too much or it'll make your head hurt. At least, it sure made mine hurt.” She emphasized her last statement by stopping to rub her temples and then slowly turned back towards Kagan, having explored as far as she could in that direction. Kagan slowly swung his legs off the slab and managed to rise shakily to his feet. He grabbed the white sheet that had been covering him and wrapped it around him, partly out of modesty, partly to help ward off the intense cold he was feeling.
“Aren't you cold?” he asked Alice.
“Freezing,” she replied, then stopped and stared at him for a long moment. “Good idea,” she said finally, grabbing her own sheet and wrapping it around herself. “Here I was wasting all kinds of time trying to find my clothes.”
Kagan pushed the slab back into it's rack, popped open a small door underneath it and pulled out a box. He opened the lid and pulled out a pair of trousers.
“These look familiar,” he said dryly before putting them on. As he struggled to free his boots from the box, Alice bounded happily over to her slab, gave it a good shove to get it closed and bent down to open the cupboard underneath it. Unfortunately, it soon emerged that she had given her slab far too hard a shove and it rebounded and caught her square in the forehead, sending her sprawling onto the floor.
“Well I sure didn't need that,” she said irritably. “Wait! I remembered something. No, wait. I didn't. Forget I said anything.”
“Done,” Kagan said, deciding it was best to completely ignore her ramblings at this juncture in favour of utilizing his limited brainpower for extraditing his other boot. Having finally accomplished this, he discovered his socks beneath his boot and proceeded to put them on, followed by his boots. Alice, for her part, gently replaced the slab into it's rack, then opened the cupboard beneath it and pulled out her box. The first thing she lifted from the box was her shirt, which she held aloft and looked at Kagan through the scorched hole that ran through both sides of the shirt.
“Yup,” she said gravely. “Definitely deaders.”
Kagan stared at the shirt long after Alice had dropped it to one side in favour of other articles of clothing. He tried vainly to bring back some sort of memory of the day they had apparently died, but his mind stubbornly refused to part with anything pertaining to that day. The last thing he could remember was docking his ship at the Zellund shipyards, then lying on the street with his life leaking out of him. And then- nothing. He reached the bottom of his box and pulled his shirt out, to the front of it marred by a large scorched hole. Alice was right, he knew. No one could have survived the injuries that were evidenced by the holes in his garment, let alone Alice's, and yet here they were, certainly the worse for wear, but undeniably alive. He looked at her and couldn't help wonder, as he watched her happily putting on her clothes as if trying them on for the first time, what manner of creature he had been sharing his bed with. He pushed the thought out of his mind as quickly as it had entered. After all, he had survived too, hadn't he? But still, a nagging doubt remained. After all, his injuries would have been far less than hers, it was possible he could have survived, but she'd had a hole blown clean through her, and yet-
“There,” Alice pronounced, satisfied. She was fully dressed, if one was willing to overlook the topless issue. “That's much better, but you'll need something to cover up those,” she told him, pointing at the guns he had strapped to his belt.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “And what about those?” he asked, nodding in her direction.
She stared back at him in puzzlement for a moment, then followed his gaze and dropped her eyes downwards. “Ah, yes,” she said, not looking up. “Well...” he eyes wandered over to the unconscious doctor on the floor. “You take his coat, I'll take his shirt. I'm sure he won't mind.”
Between them, they managed to remove the doctor's coat and shirt, and then placed him up on one of the slabs upon Alice's insistence that he'd be more comfortable there. Kagan found the doctor's coat to be a perfect fit, and though the shirt was much too big, Alice was obviously pleased with it's silky fabric.
“So, what's the plan?” she inquired.
“Well,” Kagan said slowly. “I was rather planning on just strolling out of here, finding the nearest exit and trying to get back to the ship from there.”
“Hmm,” Alice pondered. “And if something goes wrong with the ingenious plan?”
“Well,” Kagan replied, patting his two concealed pistols. “Then things around here are just gonna get all kinds of violent.”
“Works for me,” she replied happily, giving him a big smile. Kagan noticed a touch of pink to her lips, and tugged open the snap-buttoned shirt to reveal skin that was beginning to show mottled colour.
“Starting to warm up?” he asked.
“A little,” she replied, looking down at herself. “Sure don't look too nice right about now though.”
Kagan had to admit that the returning colour gave Alice a blotchy, bruised appearance, which he wouldn't admit aloud, wasn't entirely pleasant.
“You look lovely,” he told her. “Now lets get moving.”
They made their way out of the room and entered a brightly lit corridor. There seemed to be no one around, and they strode quickly up the hall, eager to put as much distance between them and the morgue as they could. They soon realized they were in a very large complex as one identical hallway after another branched off, each one stretching off into the distance. Just as they were beginning to despair ever escaping, they rounded a corner and banged into a rather surprised looking man whose name tag identified him as Doctor Gwenllyn.
“Good evening,” Kagan greeted him cheerfully.
“Err, good evening,” the doctor replied slowly. “Might I ask what you are doing here?”
“Well,” Kagan replied. “We're rather new here-”
“It's our first day,” Alice piped up.
“-yes, our first day,” agreed Kagan. “And we got a little bit turned around trying to find the exit and all, because-”
“There are many corners,” Alice informed the doctor gravely.
“-yes, many corners,” Kagan echoed.
“I... see,” Dr. Gwenllyn said, giving the two of them a look that left no illusions as to what he thought they'd really been up to. “Well, if you follow this corridor to the end, then take your first right, and the second left after that, you'll be in main reception, and I'm sure you can make your way out from there.”
“Great!” Alice exclaimed happily. “Thanks, doc!”
“Of course,” Dr. Gwenllyn replied with a gracious nod. He watched the two hurry off, waiting until they'd gotten about halfway down the hall before tapping a few commands into his wrist controller. As Kagan and Alice passed through the next doorway, there was a pop and a crackle, and the two collapsed into a motionless pile. Gwenllyn shook his head ruefully. Honestly, he wondered. Who had they thought they were fooling?

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

yea! more story. Im confused and confounded about the dead coming back to life, but im sure that there will be an explination in time. just like with the table.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Heh...

Behold the power of the author! Not even death is final.

Intoxicating, isn't it?

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

indeed it must be intoxicating. i generally prefer for death to be final. but im still entertained by the story.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Don't worry, I'm currently working on the explanation for my necromancy, so you won't have to wait as long as you did with Ted. Well, actually, I already know what the explanation is, I'm just working on getting it all written down.
As for death being final, well, is was going to be, since I was planning on wrapping the story up, but then I had this unbelieveably cool idea that sorta requires Alice &amp; Kagan to be alive, so hey presto! They're back.

And on another note, I don't know if I ever mentioned it or not, but 'Alice' was always supposed to be a place-holder name until I came up with something better. And I think I've done it. I was randomly wandering around one of those baby-name websites and I came across Ashild, which is a Norse (I think) name whose meaning I thought fitted a bit better than Alice. I'll let you all go discover it's meaning on your own though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

i kinda liked alice, because she always seems to have an aura of innocent wonderment about her. like the girl in the book, ya know?

i thought it was part of the joke. this supernatural baddass whos totally wide-eyed all the time and has an unobtrusive name.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Damn. Hadn't thought of that, but it does work rather well now that you mention it. Great. Now I'm gonna have to think about it.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Alice stays please. The name has such a nonchalant feel to it, and we're attached to her now.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Maybe Ashild is a new character with mysterious ties to Alice?

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Nah, I think I'll keep Ashild for another story I'm planning. Suits her better anyway.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

good fun

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

yay! They're back!

By the way AZ, I created a brief HifH page over on the wiki: http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.p..._is_for_Heroes but it's more of a placeholder than anything. Feel free to improve it.

Will this other story you mentioned be set in the same galaxy as HifH or is it a complete departure?

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

Cool, thanks! I've given it a little read over and can't think of anything to add. It's short and to the point, and that's the way I like things.



[/quote] Will this other story you mentioned be set in the same galaxy as HifH or is it a complete departure?

[/quote]

The new story is a pretty big departure. It's set in the future, but it's not really the future of Earth, but of a fantasy realm, so you have things like the filthy rich riding around on dragons, wizards complaining that personal teleporters are putting them out of business, orcs and trolls cleaning floors, that sort of madness.

Re: OT: Hell is For Heroes.
 

aw, poop. its set in the adamant mod.