Tais wanders over from her post north of the freighter and catches Davis' reply to her brother. "What makes you qualified to lead our revolution?"
Ahaz can't suppress a grin. "Now look what you've started."
---
Max and Angel flash the IR beam several more times. A worrisome amount of times, until they finally hear the clicks and squelches of more Morse code. Hugh's spotted the signal and they're on their way.
---
Semo gives more juice to the impellers, propelling the warsled across broken slabs and sparsely wooded hills. The skimmer trails dust in its wake. Semo's got the hang of the controls, but at this speed it's a constant battle to keep the sled from clipping trees and rocks. He keeps the hammer down; no telling who could have seen those IR beams.
The sled breaks out of the forest and into a much rockier area with foothills and short cliffs leading to tangles of scrub. Semo's taking the vehicle up a ridge, bleeding off speed to reduce the dust kicked up as they crest when Bello taps him on the shoulder.
"Imperials!" he shouts over the wind noise. Bello points, and Hugh and Semo see the tiny black outline of one of those manta-ships they encountered on Whiirr. It's still fairly far off but it's heading in their direction.
---
Angel perks up at a low hum approaching from the ridge. He flips down his goggles and takes a look. There's a cut-down foliage-encrusted gravsled speeding its way across the ridge at maybe 80 miles an hour. Angel flashes the IR right at them and sees Semo's bulky form behind the wheel.
About this time, Max spots the manta-ship in the night sky.
Gravel showers down the slope as Semo slides the warsled to a rough stop 30 feet away from Max, Arketta, Angel, and Dunamis, who's looking apprehensive about getting on that hacked-together A-Team flying rickshaw of a gravsled.
Davis shrugs. "Nothing in particular. I've never been a particularly visible person, always been towards the back, working behind the scenes. If someone else wants to lead, that's fine by me, but only as long as they're getting the job done. I think you'd agree with me that what's most important here is success. This is bigger than all of us, and there's no place for ego and grandstanding when our lives, the lives of our loved ones and the freedom of entire worlds is at stake."
He climbs back off the ladder and walks over to Tais. "We're not here to show up, say that we're from the long-lost homeworld, and take over what you have all spent years of your lives fighting for. We are here to help, to do what we can while accomplishing what we're here to do, which is save our planet from turning into another Bashakra. Our mission to save our world comes first, however, it's looking more and more like our causes are one and the same. For right now, we have a very specific mission that we're here to accomplish, but after this, we will stand and fight along with you, as equals. We have some new ideas and a lot of resources to offer, and I think after this, we'll have earned a seat at whatever command table you have, but I don't expect to be put in charge simply because we're from Narsai."
Tais looks at Ahaz, whose smirk can't contain itself and the dark man bursts into laughter. Tais follows suit.
"I thank you for that," she says to Davis. "But I was just egging you on. Ahaz and I are soldiers. We're here to fight. Knowing too much about the whos and whys just makes you more dangerous to your allies if you're captured."
Davis smiles. He knows how to take a joke, even when he's the butt end of it. "Still, I'd hope that you at least know your own personal reasons for fighting and what your leaders are fighting for. Knowing the who's and whys doesn't just mean the grand strategy. Not caring about what you're fighting for and why is how the Imperium gets their soldiers to commit their atrocities, and I think you're better than that."
The experience of trying to keep this gravsled under control reminds Semo of what he's seen on TV of bull-riding. It's a constant struggle to keep them from getting mashed by the unruly beast.
Relying on Hugh's pointing to keep him on the right path, Semo finally pulls the sled to a stop as near the away team as he dares. Only then does he get a chance to look around. Following Bello's arm with his eyes, he finds the manta ship. A string of profanities of the sort only a dedicated soldier can manage pours from his lips.
"Come on, come on, come on," Semo rumbles. "Gotta get the fuck out of Dodge..."
Semo's tense as Arketta pushes Dunamis onto the sled, then starts loading the two functional armored suits onboard while Max clambers through the leafy rollcage into the rear. Angel jumps on and Semo floors it. The warsled was modified to conceal its energy signature, but it's easy enough to tell that there's a vehicle down there against the rocky hillside.
The manta drops lower, not even bothering with voxed warnings. They move straight on to warning shots; there's a WHAM as a hypervelocity killdrone blasts a crater into the hill. Rock fragments and dirt hit the sled and sting its occupants. Semo clears the crater with nary a jostle from the sled's stabilizers. He's hit 60 mph already by his estimate, and isn't planning on slowing down. The trees thicken down the slope and would provide cover, but with that comes the greater danger of collision. The rocky hillsides and ridges are more open, for good or ill. They would at least provide shots back at the manta. Or Semo could boost the sled as high as it can go and hope the hotrod can outpace the flying tank that's found them.
The manta's about 600 feet above them and banking to chase the tiny sled.
With no idea just how fast a manta-ship is, Semo figures that cover is his best bet. He notes a thickening of trees down-slope from his current position. If anything, going downhill might help his speed a little, too.
Of course, the driving is going to get nasty pretty soon. Semo thinks of his parents and hopes he'll survive long enough to see them again.
Semo drifts the warsled off the trail and dives into the trees. Scrub and bushes shred like confetti on the high-speed sled as Semo powers through the thickets surrounding the older trees. The manta follows from on high, trying to stay on its camouflaged prey with glimpses through the forest canopy.
Return of the Jedi's speeder bike chase was fine and all, but this is insane. Semo doesn't have a destination in mind; he couldn't possibly do anything but dodge tree trunks right now. The manta tries to force Semo into open ground - a spread of five killdrones flattens the forest like Tunguska a few hundred meters to the right. Semo figures as long as he's almost dying with each daredevil swerve, the manta's not killing them.
Another barrage lights up the forest in pale whites and greens. This time Semo does burst out into a burning prairie littered with still-toppling trees. Shit, he thinks, opting to rabbit the warsled side-to-side to avoid the inevitable fire from on high. It doesn't quite work - the warsled's hammered by a near-miss that almost sends the vehicle into a death flip like a racing speedboat. Semo sees green-on-darker-green night sky, the sled skips off grass, and he's still running.
The foliage wrapped through the rollcage that took painstaking work to arrange is now on fire. Angel and Arketta start ripping branches off of the white-hot cage, cursing at burnt fingers. Max wipes blood away from a gash on his face, looks down, and sees dirt flashing by through the three or four holes melted straight through the sled's floor. Bello's holding his head where he hit the rollcage. Dunamis has toppled into the aisle between the deuce-and-a-half-style bench seats and is holding the side of his head.
A beam turret burst geysers soil, this time too far to the left. Semo's back in the safety(?) of the forest. He tries to change course, slaloming around tree trunks that seem to get denser the faster he goes. The manta falls further behind as it takes precious moments to realize its quarry's changed direction.
Semo swerves again and this time the manta takes too long to find the warsled. Two more breakneck turns and Semo's lost the flying terror. He stays to the trees but brings the sled's speed down to a manageable level. The wind noise dies off somewhat; the warsled's still running despite the damage; and Dunamis Kon has lost his left eye and ear and has pissed himself before falling unconscious yet again.
Luis has been sort of hanging out near Davis and the Bakasharans, helping with the netting. So far, Davis hasn't said anything too bad, so Luis is content to merely listen. However, Davis finally seems to be wrapping up his conversation, so Luis walks over and clears his throat. "Hey, I don't suppose either of you knows anything about computers? I've got some questions, nothing too technical, just me being a technologically backwards Homeworlder. Anybody here able to answer them?"
Luis nods, "Thanks. Lemme fire up my machine, grab the data I need to ask about." He leads Aq to someplace where he can set down his Toughbook and fire it up. After logging in, Luis opens a Word document containing some of the testimony from Varos as related to the the RoBS, carefully named as to avoid mentioning the source. He highlights a line, "The Cortex has backups. Data modules and even books and scrolls hold the entirety of Imperial knowledge." He turns to Aq, "So, how big are these modules? Physically, data-storage capacity, whatewver. Are they man-portable? How many would they probably be using?"
OOC Note: The text is actually from your description in the NQOOC thread, ADS, but I figured that Varos would have been the lmore ikely IC source, not Arketta.
Ducking and juking the gravsled through the forest is a whole new experience in terror. Semo can't think about anything but avoiding the next tree.
Unfortunately, one wrong swerve spills them out into an area swept bare by the manta ship. Somehow, dodging the ship's fire seems remarkably like dodging the trees, only more dangerous.
Moments later, Semo makes it back into the semi-safety of the trees. A number of hair-raising turns through the dense forest leaves them somewhere seemingly out of the manta's awareness. Gratefully, Semo eases back on the throttle.
"I think so. Yes, sir," Semo pants, still trying to get ahold of his racing heartbeat.
The foliage wrapped through the rollcage that took painstaking work to arrange is now on fire. Angel and Arketta start ripping branches off of the white-hot cage, cursing at burnt fingers. Max wipes blood away from a gash on his face, looks down, and sees dirt flashing by through the three or four holes melted straight through the sled's floor.
"Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!" screams Max, holding on for dear life.
"The Cortex has backups. Data modules and even books and scrolls hold the entirety of Imperial knowledge." He turns to Aq, "So, how big are these modules? Physically, data-storage capacity, whatever. Are they man-portable? How many would they probably be using?"
Aq looks askance at Luis, trying to figure out whose data modules he's talking about. "Most Cortex modules don't have capacity for more than 100 petabytes or so; most planets run from one to a hundred of these with backups. The backup units typically run cloned storage in the exabytes... I've not seen one myself but I know they're yay big" - Aq makes motions about 150% the height of a beer fridge, about the same width. "They run molecular processors with fluidic storage, hence the size. I mean, the main Cortex, the Repository, I have no idea. That's supposedly every Cortex. It IS the Cortex, technically. It'd be zettabytes... I don't know how many modules it would have, but there'd be a lot. And you'd probably get a lot of older shit in there. Easier to repossess more planet or build higher for more space, why risk losing anything, right?"
"Do you hear that?" Ahaz asks the group outside. Sure enough, you can make out the faint hum of a vehicle that eventually proves to be the damaged warsled limping back to the Morningstar.
They're back, a little worse for wear, but they've brought presents - the wounded Apprehender from in town plus all manner of military hardware lies scattered in the back of the sled.
Admiral Duck Sauce
