[STORY] Minor boskonian war bit.

[KJ]

True to what Mal'd promised, there was warm water waiting. I'd hurried and stashed the hardsuit around the hull beforehand; really hardly wanted to bring down the ultrasmurfs on Ptichka, or get people wondering too hard about where I'd been or any number of other things.
Normally, disguises would be a bit of a pain in the ass but... well, I was known for my idiosyncracies in attire. Without a variation on the Hawaiian shirt / boots / fatigues / weaponry theme, I wondered how many people would notice. Even more though was the irritation I'd developed towards the mainstream senshi and kunoichi following the incident at the old SOS-con... so an overblown green jumpsuit and accessories for me, and a choice of either fuku or battle skirt-and-fishnets-and-crap of doom! No, I didn't kill anyone for it... the milsenshi had donated a spare outfit at some point, and some of the ninja owed me some favors and vice versa.
So, anyone who knew enough about what I looked like wouldn't have spotted me in the jumpsuit and bandanna over half my face and various armbands.
That didn't make B laugh any less when I came out from the shower dressed in the crap.
"Yeah, I know... how come the kunoichi get the decent looking garb?" I asked to the figure rolling around the floor.

[Vangeek]

"Heeeeeee!" I couldn't stop giggling, I really couldn't. Poor KJ, getting outfitted with that gear. He looked...well, my current reaction aside, I didn't want to be cruel, but the rig was certainly not something I'd be caught wearing. I'd wear and have worn almost anything else, but most of the senshi-esque stuff I avoided. One would think with the wild white hair it'd fit, but my frame wasn't quite built for those styles.
"Oh, dude, sorry, but... geez. You wanna change? I've got a pile of garb in the back that might suit. Been collecting and trading off all kinds of fan stuff in my spare time."

[KJ]

I smiled slightly. "No... really, that's about what I was going for," I commented. "I wouldn't be caught dead in this either... which is good in this case; I'm trying to stay off people's radar."
She finally managed to calm down. "Heh. Well, you haven't seen what I'm offering yet."
I shook my head. "Mebbe, but I'm not wearing women's clothing when I'm not one. It's just weird." Well, weird was a strange adjective given my circumstances, but hey, I had to draw the line somewhere.
"Girly clothes? Naw...lesse, I've got some Saxon stuff, that Shinigami rig...actually, got a few of those Bleach hakama and pants outfits."
"Right, but I'd be caught dead in those, whereas everyone 'knows' I dislike the senshi and naruclones after that bigass brawl." I watched as she suddenly got the idea. I had to chuckle myself. "Besides, it was sorta a joke. The... group I've been working with did some crosstraining with some of the more serious ninja, and I anticipated this sorta thing would come up... we all got drunk and assembled the most steretypicially awful outfits possible." B giggled at that. Actually, again, the kunoichi outfit wasn't that terrible in comparison. As KJ, the green jumpsuit, bandanna, pulled up turtleneck and utility vest made me resemble a terrible hybrid of Guy and Kakashi but the kunoichi outfit for Kali was more easily described as the results of someone in a bathrobe and too many braids raiding a Hot Topic.
"Mal mention what I'm back for?" I asked, wanting to get a handle on what she'd been told and not. It wasn't that I didn't trust her or any of the rest, but... well, isn't need to know supposed to be at the core of keeping things covert?
"Not exactly," she replied. "'Grandfather' told me to pick you up here." I had to snicker at that; a typical Mal detail.
"Well, I won't go into it then... various secret squirrel stuff. Some other tinkering too as long as I'm here. That and Dee wanted me to try to find her a worryingly large amount of goop."
"Oh. Oh dear. I got some in the back for my projects, but knowing Dee..." I nodded.
"She wants about 120 pounds of it. Didn't say for what, but..." B looked even more surprised than I had been.
"Sweet Eris," she finally remarked. "I'm going to have to talk to my suppliers. You really want to get that much? I can get it within a couple days, though you might not want to know how." I shrugged.
"Depends on the rest of my schedule. I can pay you for it though, obviously." She got a gleam in her eye at that, which almost would have been worrying too.
"Really? There's a few rare bits and pieces I need..." I waved my hand vaguely, gesturing for her to go on. B ticked things off on her fingers as she answered. "Titanium, for one. Meteoric steel and cold iron...woods like yew and rowan would be nice as well, but I might be able to get it myself." I took a seat and thought. Dee would be able to look all of this up, but her PDA was still linked to the hardsuit.
"Well, titanium's the easy one, I've got suppliers that I do enough trade with to get discounts. Meteoric steel... well, there really aren't enough meteors for meaningful amounts, but it just happens that we've got a bunch of pre-metors that are floating around." Nevermind the fact that some of them even had mining operations on them already. "Cold iron though... I half suspect that it's one of those things that fantasy writers with no metallurgy knowledge just made up properties of; you can't really get iron approaching a useful form without smelting. Going historicially, it's just cold-worked wrought iron though." I shrugged.
"Hrm. My Christmas wishlist is really topped off by the meteoric steel, so if you could grab me some, that'd be perfect."
"For your purposes, is asteroidic steel close enough?"
"Yeah, it should be fine. I would like meteoric, but you don't need to go to any great lengths for it if it's that much trouble. I'll take what I can get." She grinned slightly and it made me think of something that would solve it.
"Well, coming to that, I could find a nice big nickel-iron rock and drop it on Earth... but people might disapprove," I commented in my near-perfect deadpan. B gave me the combination of a wince and chuckle that accompanied a lot of my ideas.
"Aye, they might."

[Kokuten]

FYI I stock at least 500 gallons of 'pure strain' 'wavium at any given moment, minimum.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Rieverre]

---
There's always been something about Kandor that rubbed me the wrong way, not that I could even put a finger on just what it was, so I ended up only actually going there if it couldn't be avoided and putting the whole thing down to some weird strain of paranoia.
I'd have enough of those to start exploiting that market niche any day now.
Still, it was a nice change of pace to use the Uncertainty again, petulance aside. Drydock doesn't seem to agree with her, or so it appeared, though things calmed down when the Cube and Trigon reintegrated themselves into shipboard systems.
Annoyed starships that think they're cats aside, it was refreshing to spend some time behind the conn. The last few months spent finalizing and later ... testing ... the Maru had worn on me a bit more than I'd expected them to.
In the end, after leaving the Maru with Hawking and heading roughly Luna-wards on their own, then dropping off a copy of the operations log with Sora - Noah was busy doing ... something. I strongly suspect sleeping, considering the sort of work-loads he tends to obsess over on a regular basis and the presence of Yoriko uncharacteristically glaring at anyone even passing beside his cabin while clearning her sidearm - I ended up at Kandor a day or two early. Depending on your definition of ship-lag and timezones.
Finding the Saloon wasn't too hard either, and I spent most of the time in the interim between then and Mal's timestamp taking a long walk.
Some say that people in Kandor have their hearts out on their sleeves for all to see. Not sure how accurate that particular tidbit of Fen-lore is, but five minutes there make you wish that was the only thing they have out for all to see. What the hell is it with most supers and wearing their underwear on the outside? Though I admit the prevalence of skintight body stockings among the female population was a nice counterpoint.
I did end up getting some novelty reading out of the deal, though at first glance 'The Comprehensive Guide To Capes - From Dramatic Flaring To Sulking In Shadow' hadn't seemed as entertaining as it turned out being.
The tail end of the whole thing did find me picking a corner booth at the Saloon a few hours before Mal was supposed show, and finding out that, yeah, they did indeed do a pretty mean taco.
---

-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[robkelk]

I was at wit's end by Wednesday morning.
First, I had missed seeing Katz when he dropped by. But Yoriko, Yayoi, and Leda all insisted that I needed to sleep, and I wasn't about to disappoint three of the important people in my life. (Hmmmmm... When did I start thinking of Leda as one of the important people in my life?) Besides, I really did need the sleep. I hope my snoring didn't disturb anyone else.
But Katz was one of the people I relied on to keep me in the loop on what was really happening, along with Yoriko, Jon Helscher and Joe Corcoran - missing any chance for an update didn't sit well with me.
Second, I was travelling alone and incognito. Sure, it was only to Kandor City - practically next door - but I didn't feel comfortable without my pistol or my 'waved-kevlar jacket. And I missed Yayoi. It was only the third time since she'd first woke up that she wasn't close enough for me to talk with on a moment's notice. (Sometimes I thought it was only our talks that kept me sane. Other times, I regretted programming Yayoi so closely to her template character that she'd never agree to share my bed... but then I'd remember that Yoriko wouldn't like that if I had.) When I realized I missed Yayoi more than I missed having access to the armory aboard the 'Blade, I wondered - was I finally growing up, or was I becoming dependant on one of my closest friends?
Third, I'd done my own driving to get from Stellvia to Luna, and I'd learned the hard way that I was badly out of practice. At least another dent in the bumper of the Little Deuce Coupe (a 'waved 1993 Jetta with what looked like wood side panels) didn't look out of place, but I remember being at least a decent driver. (Maybe I really was becoming dependant on Yayoi...)
Fourth, I felt ridiculous in this outfit. Not that most of it was very different from what I usually wore, but the motorcycle leathers were damned hot, and the helmet interfered with my peripheral vision. The computer and sensors that Sora had built into the helmet helped offset that, but not completely.
So I thought it might be a good idea to show up early, and try to get my composure back.
Katz, Comrade Fnord, and I were scheduled to meet at the Paragon City Saloon at 13:00. I walked into the Saloon at 11:59 and looked around, only to discover I wasn't the first paranoid to show up. That actually calmed me down. I smiled at the cute waitress at the door, told her I was meeting a friend who was already here, asked her to bring over a couple of Crystal Sapporo Darks and a plate of stuffed potato skins, and handed her the credit card I was using for this trip. (Owning my own space station, and thus my own bank, made it easy to get credit cards with false names.)
Then I walked over to the table that Katz was already at and sat down. "I don't remember asking you to sit down," he muttered.
I raised the helmet's visor. "But I promised to buy the first round, Katz."
"Noah? What's with the outfit?"
"I told you I'd be showing up in costume, remember? Besides, it's got built-in sensors and armor." Those sensors pinged, alerting me to the waitress showing up with the food and beers I'd ordered.
She put everything on the table and handed me the credit slip to sign. I did so after retrieving and pocketing my credit card - but not before Katz noticed the name typed on it. Once the waitress left, he asked, "'D. Quincy Sangnoir?'"
"It's a long story. Too long for the time we have before anybody else shows up, and not for public consumption anyway. But it matches the outfit. So, any idea what Mal really wants to talk about?"

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[KJ]

5/19/2013, 18:23
I'd been a while since I'd seen the rest of the crew, though I knew Mal wouldn't be around and neither was Calc. Still, I got to fill in the rest on glossed over accounts of working with Senshi in an un-mentioned role, and in turn I found out about the details of some of the unsupported close scrapes that Mal had mentioned on the discussion group. Which was unpleasant to hear about, to say the least, though obviously they all survived it. Dee spent most of the time doing her own thing too; probably trading posts with some newsgroups. She'd been doing a lot more investigation on making a body lately.
Boarding actions remained undiscussed. I knew that all of us were in the war, they'd been in danger too but... it wasn't something you could talk about to people who weren't doing it, and those who were had even less reason to. I had to half wonder if they were seeing me as being more distant. It was probably the case. I didn't mention what I was back for either and they didn't ask. Even if they would find out about it later, there was no sense letting the cat out of the bag.
I left the ship fairly covertly when we hit Kandor, not wanting to be seen to be associated with the rest of the crew. Paranoia maybe, but I'd lost one staging base due to being observed by human intelligence assets going to it, and I wasn't about to endanger my friends. So it was in full ninja garb that I made my way to a discreet bar in one of the older parts of the city.
Mal had a table in a back corner, and cooly appraised me for a few seconds as I approached before blinking in recognition. He gestured to the other booth and slid over a pint of Guinness.
"You look ridiculous, man," he commented in greeting. I had to grin as I pulled down the turtleneck mask dealie and took a pull from the beer.
"Yeah, 'twas the idea really. Been keeping busy?" Mal nodded slightly; I suppose it was a silly question. "Me too, though I suppose you know about some of that."
"The bits that aren't too hard to dig out... actually, speaking of which, who's Kali actually?" I nodded, taking another sip from the glass, having expected that.
"There's the short answer and there's the long answer. Short answer is girltype me."
"I figured that much, yeah. And the long answer?"
"The longer answer is that she shares headspace with me, shares memories and skillsets, but she thinks and acts differently enough that she's more not-me than me." I paused at Mal's look and sighed. "I know how that sounds, yes. We're kinda beyond conventional psych though, y'know? And it works."
"Fair enough, I guess I'll meet her later. So without going too far into detail, the operation you're proposing... you're sure you have the forces to pull it off?"
"No bullshitting?" I paused. "No, I'm not sure. I don't know exactly what we're going to be running into; I'm sure there's more intel than what we have but a lot of this is going to be going in blind. It depends on us getting good enough information to blend in after we take the ship, and if things go south the ship may not be up to getting us out in a hurry."
"Is this a good idea, then?"
"Yes, it is. It's risky, but we're about the best trained and equipped for indoors work on this side of the fence. If there's a final destination, we can infiltrate and get intel that I doubt anyone else can, and fight our way out if we get made. Or take an objective, or whatever. It's going to be improvisation and that's our bread and butter."
"All right. In more detail then, let's see what snags we can hash out ahead of time. I've got a meeting with some others setup on the 22nd."
Franky, that wasn't surprising... it was really what I'd been hoping he could set up. I had the basis of a plan, in enough detail to improvise, probably, but someone else to pick through it helped find all sorts of little niggly details that bore thinking about. After a good hour or so and a few more beers we'd gotten to a point where we were mostly satisfied.
"So why senshi?" he asked a while later when we were to something more akin to shooting the shit.
"Aside from that, as a group, they're one of the toughest things you can insert into a spaceship corridor?"
"Yeah, obviously. As a group they also tend towards cheery idealism, long-winded speeches, and the like. Not really special forces material." I had to grin slightly at that.
"That's a common conception."
"I notice you didn't say misconception." I nodded.
"Well, the thing is, there's two major operating factions... what they call themselves is unimportant, but basicially it's sorted into whether they want to make the world a bright shining utopia," the sarcasm at that was practicially etching holes in the table, "by creating things or wrecking things, usually to the accompanying overwinded slogans. All well and good." I took a pull from my beer and chuckled slightly. "Thing is, and what they don't like to talk about, is there's some who don't really fit in, per se."
"You're recruiting from the Darks?"
"I see you know all this already. Yeah, pretty much exclusively. They're not so much a faction, and a lot of them find the others even more irritating than I do. This kind of thing seems to appeal to a lot, honestly. Place to belong and all that, plus applied violence to a good cause. Yeah, I know, nihilist reputation, but it's largely crap; at least all the ones I recruited. Just because they don't want to help in the same way the L and Js do..."
"Okay, but the speeches?" I had to grimace, remembering how long it had taken.
"Training."

[Rieverre]

---
Making the universal hand-gesture for so-so, I placed a bookmark and set my reading aside.
"Something about the new fishing rod I've been trying out," I said. "Well, that and he's brining us a variable-gender swordsperson to talk whatever it is over."
"That's all you got from him?" Noah asked.
Alright, so it wasn't exactly in character for me to go on that little info. On the other hand.
"Well, the trip went a bit towards the boonies and I might have dropped my cell along the way, so he went and sent the missive to me via express shipping."
"You're enjoying this cloak and dagger parody entirely too much. Any more and you'd be sticking fake scars to your face and parading around in Matsumoto-ite wear."
"Quite," I grinned. "Anyway, Maetel bumped his wanting to get in touch with me towards the 'Maru, and tagged it with a 'please', and here I am. She's usually right about this sort of thing."
Oddly enough, or maybe not so much when you consider the fact that both myself and the Express were 'under way' eleven months out of every twelve, Noah hadn't ever met Maetel other than in passing, and that had been back at the end of that whole Sauce-Con mess. Come to think of it, I don't think either of us had any sort of free time in the usual understanding of the phrase since that particular cinch.
I frowned. Hell, I'd spent my birthday this year blowing shit up, and while it was sort of therapeutic, it hadn't been terribly relaxing.
"You don't look terribly enthusiastic about it," Noah commented.
"No, that was on a pretty much unrelated tangent. Anyway, did Sora bother you with what I dropped off before I blew out of Stellvia?"
He shook his head. "By the time I was awake and coherent it was high time to get on the way to make it here on time."
"Ah. No worries, then. It wasn't anything immediately critical, just something to forward on to an analyst to see how it fits into the long-term view. My friendly neighborhood megalomaniac extrapolated the short term one and we were busy mopping _that_ up over the first few weeks," I said, pulling out a PDA - ironically, one of the ones Stellvia had been giving out as complimentaries to renting clients a while back - and sliding it over.
Noah picked it up, and started going through it, before going bug-eyed. Okay, I didn't think there was anything in there to warrant that sort of reaction.
"Katz, what the _hell_? You're telling me this isn't critical information? If the Boskonians are working on this ..."
He was trying to keep his voice level.
I shuffled my chair back a little, half-stood, and leaned over ...
"Oh," I said. "Right, sorry, wrong file. That's next year's girl."
"Like I said, what the _hell_?!"
"Well, actually, it started off as something to do when I was fighting with the blueprints of the 'Maru," I shrugged, sitting back down. "Just sort of happened when I let my mind wander. Then Mal's report about the maroons trying to reenact their very own Horus Heresy showed up, and ..."
"I'm just trying to come to grips with how an Imperium of Man _Battlebarge_ can just _sort of_ happen ..." Noah trailed off. "And are these ... crewing requirements? Build time and cost projections? Weapons loadout ..."
"... yeah, Kohran caught me around then," I admitted. "Things snowballed."
"... I'll just pretend I didn't see this," he ended with a long-suffering sigh. The PDA changed hands for a moment while I called up the relevant documents. "Aaaaand this reads like some kind of cheap Cold War thriller. Mercenaries and a retired NKWD Colonel? In space?"
"I was thinking more like something out of an Ian Flemming book."
"No, that'd have the head of it be either a mad scientist or a wealthy industrialist of some kind. And seeing as I'm nominally one of the latter, I'd rather it not end up that way, thanks."
"Point, right up to the sexy henchwomen. Anyway, as far as Trigon and Viola could cross reference and follow, there was only a fringe connection to Boskone, and even that just through occasional gun deals. So, I'm sending the memo around for people to check on."
"People, as in ...?"
"People. Some of them of a Mordenesque disposition, others with a decidedly Fnord-ese temperament, if you excuse my Pratchett."
---
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[KJ]

Idly, Griever? Starting to kick around the convo for the briefing in email; could you drop me a line at the addy in the contact info thread? Danke.

[Vangeek]

Kokuten:
About that 'wavium KJ wanted...you got something else going on regarding that already, or can I/we doodle something about it's acquisition?
(I'm not super concerned, just tossing ideas around in my head for some 'fic I really need to get around to writing )

[Kokuten]

'Wavium of 'basic strain' is available in quantities of ~1000 gallon (American) at any notice, larger lots may require lead time. I can provide up to 100 gallons of 'guacamole' wavium at any time, and again, larger quantities on request.
That's all I've 'got going', so have a blast.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[KJ]

For the record, the "thinking of needing large quantities of it" was for Dee, and from the pseudo-IC newsgroup posts she made asking for advice, she kinda convinced herself going the me-traditional route of hardtech-with-goop-additions would be cooler.
After all, how cool would a shiny chrome Berserker body be?

[Vangeek]

Oops. Oh well.
And yes, shiny is cool.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

After all, how cool would a shiny chrome Berserker body be?

---

Pretty cool, unless it's one of Saberhagen's Berserkers...

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

[KJ]

---

Pretty cool, unless it's one of Saberhagen's Berserkers...

---

... very no.
Actually, I should have said "nickel" and not "chrome" but... well, shiny in either case.
Sooner or later I'm going to get bored and start writing Deestuff.