February 2008
The foam crashes to the deck, along with something else. Waverly pushes through the debris and her camera shows us the revealed object.
Waverly orders her soldiers to take cover along the walls. They spring away, narrowly escaping being flattened.
Just then, there is a small explosion, and the foam buckles and collapses, raining chunks on the combatants.
But if the magnetics work in the ripped airlock, why did they need to use foam at all?
January 2008
There’s that hastily-applied foam patching, with ”Follow Your Leader” written in Cyrillic.
Anonymous moves into the real world, calling for... →
Looking through Waverly’s camera, I see something above. I tell her to focus up on the ceiling.
A small handful of surviving human spacers are being held to one side. Their guards join the fray, and the humans run to escape the battle.
'Time After Time' Becomes A Musical →
Some are recaptured and killed by frenzied artificials. Some of them are accidentally cut down by shots from their fellow humans.
Goodie Bag :: Trajan is the Movie Font →
Woody Allen's typography →
(via Metafilter)
“What I saw happen with the drug war, a series of political elections, and vague...”
– CJR: Secrets of the City
Finally, with a concerted push, my attackers beat the waves of artificials back into the hold and board the ship.
Wave upon wave batter my raiders, and several take injuries.
It’s hard to make out detail through the smoke, but I did see a hand being severed, an eye gouged, blood and coolant flying.
The press of artificials keeps coming, egged on by the six brawny toolcleaners and a2fl who looms behind, acting as field marshal.
The rover grapples itself to the side of the Volga, hard against the repulsor field.
My crew cuts them down with energy pulses and hand charges, doing their best to avoid permanently damaging them when possible.
I bring Dziga to a tactical console, where we can see the video streams coming from a half-dozen of the raiders.
The magnetic field drops, and the artificials surge forward, swinging hand tools and blunt instruments.
On the other side of the forcefield, lines of artificials stand coiled, ready to spring. They scream and snarl like animals.
While an engineer hacks into the magnetic controls, the raiders prepare for battle.
This news makes them even more eager for action. I remind them that the one exception to this rule is the rebellious artificials.
The attackers, twenty strong, board a rover and head for the fleeing Volga.
They are to be subdued if at all possible, and only destroyed as a last recourse.
Soft Focus: Interviews with some damn fine and/or... →
Since Dziga considers his ship lost, I tell my raiders that any of the Volga’s cargo they can take, they’ll be allowed to keep.
I put Waverly in charge of the assault. The ship scuttlebutt says that she once shipped with pirates. She is a fierce, resolute fighter.
I lead the raiding party to their rover, but Dziga and Waverly both beg me to stay on board and not to risk my life. I reluctantly agree.
I order them to squirt video continuously back to us. I will monitor events and relay to them Dziga’s knowledge of the ship.
“But that’s the thing: that’s this weird psychological trick of...”
– they must need bears - code monkey think maybe manager want to write goddamned login page himself.
But with the engines I helped to restore, the Mother Volga blasts away from us and is quickly out of range.
I instruct our gunner to draw a bead on them with the Skipstone’s light cannon and to disable them only.
The two other spacers who survived their jump to the gantry are trundled down to the medlab.
But I cannot let this immoral offense against nature stand without doing something to oppose it.
Dziga begs me to let the ship go. He says he can’t bear to think of any more human blood being spilled by the murderous artificials.
Instead, I order her to assemble a raiding party. We will board using a rover and retake the ship.
My first instinct is to give chase. But Waverly reminds me that we still have crew EVA on the asteroid, and I can’t leave them.
The gantry retracted, I help Dziga on to my ship. Waverly carries a bound bab0 and locks him in a small supply closet.
I never dreamt such things were even possible. Artificials revolting against - KILLING - their human masters? Unheard of. Unspeakable.
a2fl stands shouting towards my ship, what I can only assume are curses. His chains are gone, his face a mask of hate.
“From this morning’s Writer’s Almanac, Virginia Woolf on Charles...”
– they must need bears - did I mention I started the b&%k tonight?
The artificials are rioting. The toolcleaners hand out weapons to every fish they can, and they are massacring the remaining humans.
“Choose a novel. Choose a title. Choose an epigraph. Choose a protagonist. Choose...”
– they must need bears - did I mention I started the b&%k tonight?
I look out a porthole. The ripped hole in the Volga has been sealed with a magnetic repulsor field. Inside the ship, chaos reigns.
bab0 dives with his full weight and tries to sink the blade into Dziga’s heart. Dziga recoils in terror, shrieking a babble of Russian.
Academy of Arms: sword fighting martial arts... →
Get your Jaime Lannister on.