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Omegas 47: Marching Orders


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#1 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 05 July 2006 - 04:38 PM

“Boo, how are things going over there?”

“Well enough, Major…” It was a rare instance when Boo went into “audio only” mode, but at the moment, almost all of her processing power was being channeled into breaking the security encryption protecting the data the team desperately needed to find and access. What little of her “consciousness” that remained was being devoted to sorting through that data and filing it away in places where it could be more easily regurgitated. That left her with practically nothing left to spare for the “niceties” of projecting a visual image, especially one as demanding as her normal polygon-intensive hamster-form. “Should have the rest of this information decrypted and processed fairly soon. About another minute or so at the most.”

Falynn nodded, pulled off her helmet, and ran a hand through the sweaty, tangled mess that was her hair. She intentionally kept it short (fairly) to avoid just such an occurrence. Apparently, it wasn’t short enough, she thought to herself, wincing as her fingers hung themselves up on a knotted clump. “Good. Keep at it. Two, Seven? What’s the status on communications?”

Cipher kicked herself a short distance away from the computer terminal she was seated at, and spun her swivel chair around in a half circle. She flashed a small smile. “Comm lines are back up, Major… operators are standing by.”

“Nice job, Ensign. Can you get me a feed to the Gallante?”

Nalia’s fingers flickered over the keyboard, typing in commands almost faster than she could have said them out loud. A confusing (to the uninitiated) mass of numbers, text, and seemingly random punctuation flowed across the screen, eventually coming to a halt after several seconds. The display blanked, a blinking cursor near the top left the only indication that the computer terminal was still functioning. There was a brief burst of static, and then an image began to resolve itself: it was the bridge of the Gallante, and the face of its operations and communications officer. Another face appeared slightly behind it, looking over the other officer’s shoulder.

Falynn smiled. “Nice to see you, Colonel.”

“Likewise, Major. What’s your status?”

“Well, considering we’re buried about eight miles underground, locked in some mostly-abandoned deathtrap with a reinforced assault platoon of orcs who are probably in possession of several extremely lethal Confed weapons prototypes… not all that bad.”

Colonel Keldorn Firecam valiantly fought back the urge to roll his eyes and sigh in frustration. Instead, he simply responded with a bland “Of course.”

Her perfunctory joke out of the way, Falynn got down to the brass tacks of her report. “Sir, we have reason to believe that the Dominion assault force looted the research labs in the complex and that they are now attempting to exfil from the facility with data critical to replicating the experiments that were being performed here. They may also be in possession of a viable prototype, but we have no means of confirming that, as yet.”

“Understood. The nature of the research projects?”

Raven frowned as she delivered the news. “Confirmed to be weaponry, sir. Exact nature is unknown… believed to be biogenic or viral…”

The statement had clearly caught the Colonel by surprise, causing him to choke on what he was going to say next. Firecam had developed a reputation for the utmost of grace under fire. That reputation was well-deserved, and had been proven many times on the battlefield, but even his normal, implacable calm couldn’t stand up to this brand of news. The Confederation had, as far as he knew (And truly, he knew a fair bit), strictly held itself to the various treaties banning the development or use of such weaponry. To be told that someone in the Confederation, perhaps someone even sanctioned by the Confederation government itself, had endorsed this line of research, was a rather sizable shock. “Major, say again?”

“Repeating: Experimental weaponry believed to be biogenic in nature… analysis of local files corroborates, but does not completely confirm this theory.” She briefly turned away from the screen, speaking to someone seated next to her. “Wait one, Colonel,” she said, momentarily holding up a single finger within the capture range of the receiving camera.

“Ensign,” she whispered to Nalia, “how secure is this uplink?”

“As secure as I can make it, Major.”

“Can you handle a UV-level encrypt?”

“In my sleep.” With an air of casualness surrounding her, Cipher punched a few keys on her board. “Transmission is encoded. Are you planning on sending the Colonel the reports we pulled from the computer systems here?”

“Yes, I am. Not that I’m questioning your abilities or anything, but I want to be absolutely sure this transmission is secure. I don’t want the information we’ve obtained leaking out… to anyone.”

“It won’t,” Nalia promised.

“You’re certain?”

“99.5%.”

“I’ll take those odds.” Falynn keyed her mike back on. “Colonel, stand by for data-burst transmission.”

Keldorn broke away from his end of the communications uplink and turned to someone somewhere off-screen. He spoke a few words that weren’t picked up by the microphone on his end, then turned back to Falynn. “Lieutenant Lefler reports all systems ready. Commence transmission.”

Falynn gestured to the comm tech seated next to her and Nalia set to work. She’d gimmicked up a little bit of programming script to take all the necessary files, and run them through three levels of encoding before feeding the encrypted batch-files to the Gallante’s computers. On the receiving side of the equation, the Gallante’s crypto specialist was cracking her knuckles and digging into the incoming signal, pulling all the pieces apart, and tossing them through a programming sifter to separate the real data from the chaff thrown in alongside it. This process, however, was going mostly unnoticed by the two “brass” officers.

“Transfer in progress,” Falynn said. “What follows is the research data we believe the Dominion copied from the local file servers.” She smirked. “It doesn’t take a bioweapons specialist to figure out that we don’t want the orcs getting their grubby, little mitts on this and feeding it to their science caste.”

“Agreed. Current status of the Dominion assault team?”

“Cut off from their extraction point at the moment, but that situation won’t last very long. Request that you secure the perimeter to cut off all egress points from the facility. Blueprints for the research base follow. Likely points of exfiltration are marked.”

“Understood, Major. Alpha, Delta, and Epsilon groups are moving into position now, and First Marine is preparing for launch as we speak.”

“Omega One copies. Do you have further orders for us, sir?”

“Not at the mom-“ He cut himself off. “Stand by…”

She frowned in confusion. “Colonel?”

There were several seconds of relative silence on the line, during which, Falynn assumed, the Colonel was conferring with someone else. When those seconds had passed, he reappeared on the vidscreen. “Amend that, Major. Admiral Kirtanis has been informed of the current situation. He has requested I pass along a direct order from him.”

Falynn blanched, fighting down a sudden lump in her throat. Vice Admiral Quinn Kirtanis was the commanding officer of Task Force Artemis. The Confederation naval squadron encompassed nineteen major vessels (Both combat and support), and several thousand personnel, including over four thousand Confederation Marines. There were a few more stops even higher than the Admiral on the Confed military chain of command, but not very many. “Yes, sir.”

“Major, to be perfectly candid with you, the Admiral is not at all happy about your discovery.”

“Yes, sir. I can imagine, sir. Biological and chemical weapons were outlawed years ago.”

“Correct. This begs the question: what was a high-level Confederation research base doing developing outlawed weaponry? The Admiral wants a full report, Major. The data transmission we just received is very comprehensive, but there must be more to it than what’s been kept in the official records.”

“I think I see where this is going, Colonel.”

“You are to bring back any and all pertinent information you can find. Experiment logs and notes, tabulated data… bring back the researchers’ personal journals if you can find the things. We need you to be as thorough as possible. Scour that base, then destroy all records that you do not take with you.”

Falynn blinked in mild confusion. “Sir?”

“The facility has clearly been compromised, Major, and we don’t have the resources to keep it closed off indefinitely. We have to assume that if this Dominion incursion does not meet with success that they will attempt to send another task force… one better equipped, and one we will likely be unable to repulse. We cannot chance them finding intact research data and using it to reverse engineer weapons for their own use.”

“Understood. And if we find more prototype weapon canisters?”

“Destroy them.”

Falynn tried but failed to stifle a slightly frustrated sigh. “Sir, that may be a problem.” She turned towards Imoen, who frowned and shook her head. “Demolitions is reporting inadequate resources for the job.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say that, Major,” he replied, his voice tinged with a mildly sardonic note.

Falynn chuckled. “Me neither, sir.”

“I doubt we can get a relief team to you in time, Omega Lead. You’ll have to make do as best you can.” The right corner of his mouth rose slightly in a half-smirk. “May I suggest the Lieutenant put her university education to use?”

“That would be a first…”

Imoen, who was unabashedly eavesdropping on the conversation, contorted her face into an expression of lightly irritated disgust. She stuck her tongue out. “Ha. Ha.”

Falynn ignored it. “Roger, Command. Omega Team proceeding with mission. Out.” She shut down the communications link and turned to the rest of the group. “You heard the man, folks. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get to it.”

#2 Guest_Theodur_*

Posted 06 July 2006 - 06:06 AM

“Well enough, Major…” It was a rare instance when Boo went into “audio only” mode, but at the moment, almost all of her processing power was being channeled into breaking the security encryption protecting the data the team desperately needed to find and access. What little of her “consciousness” that remained was being devoted to sorting through that data and filing it away in places where it could be more easily regurgitated. That left her with practically nothing left to spare for the “niceties” of projecting a visual image, especially one as demanding as her normal polygon-intensive hamster-form.


So sayeth The Voice of Boo. :D

Falynn nodded, pulled off her helmet, and ran a hand through the sweaty, tangled mess that was her hair. She intentionally kept it short (fairly) to avoid just such an occurrence. Apparently, it wasn’t short enough, she thought to herself, wincing as her fingers hung themselves up on a knotted clump.


Isn’t that like the first ever vague suggestion about Raven’s looks? :P In any case, good to see. ;)

Nalia’s fingers flickered over the keyboard, typing in commands almost faster than she could have said them out loud. A confusing (to the uninitiated) mass of numbers, text, and seemingly random punctuation flowed across the screen, eventually coming to a halt after several seconds. The display blanked, a blinking cursor near the top left the only indication that the computer terminal was still functioning. There was a brief burst of static, and then an image began to resolve itself: it was the bridge of the Gallante, and the face of its operations and communications officer. Another face appeared slightly behind it, looking over the other officer’s shoulder.


Falynn smiled. “Nice to see you, Colonel.”


Whee! (squeals like a fangirl (well, almost)) It’s Keldorn! :D

“Well, considering we’re buried about eight miles underground, locked in some mostly-abandoned deathtrap with a reinforced assault platoon of orcs who are probably in possession of several extremely lethal Confed weapons prototypes… not all that bad.”


Yeah, they’ve been in tighter spots before, right? I mean… right? :D

Raven frowned as she delivered the news. “Confirmed to be weaponry, sir. Exact nature is unknown… believed to be biogenic or viral…”


Might in the worst case scenario warrant blasting the planet out of space to prevent the Dominion from unleashing the weapon…

The statement had clearly caught the Colonel by surprise, causing him to choke on what he was going to say next. Firecam had developed a reputation for the utmost of grace under fire. That reputation was well-deserved, and had been proven many times on the battlefield, but even his normal, implacable calm couldn’t stand up to this brand of news. The Confederation had, as far as he knew (And truly, he knew a fair bit), strictly held itself to the various treaties banning the development or use of such weaponry. To be told that someone in the Confederation, perhaps someone even sanctioned by the Confederation government itself, had endorsed this line of research, was a rather sizable shock. “Major, say again?”


Evil unto Evil, as they say. Shame about billions of innocent civilians that get in the way, but let’s not concern ourselves with that, eh?

“In my sleep.” With an air of casualness surrounding her, Cipher punched a few keys on her board. “Transmission is encoded. Are you planning on sending the Colonel the reports we pulled from the computer systems here?”


Cipher is finally in her element – she must be relishing this after looking somewhat out of depth in combat situations.

“You’re certain?”


“99.5%.”


Not bloody good enough! :P

“Transfer in progress,” Falynn said. “What follows is the research data we believe the Dominion copied from the local file servers.” She smirked. “It doesn’t take a bioweapons specialist to figure out that we don’t want the orcs getting their grubby, little mitts on this and feeding it to their science caste.”


Orcs have science caste? :shock: What are they called, like shamans? ;)

There were several seconds of relative silence on the line, during which, Falynn assumed, the Colonel was conferring with someone else. When those seconds had passed, he reappeared on the vidscreen. “Amend that, Major. Admiral Kirtanis has been informed of the current situation. He has requested I pass along a direct order from him.”


Hmm. *scowls* I’m not liking this.

“Major, to be perfectly candid with you, the Admiral is not at all happy about your discovery.”


Gee, I’m sorry for stumbling over your bucket of dirty laundry, you complete piece of fat, bureaucratic ass. ;)

“The facility has clearly been compromised, Major, and we don’t have the resources to keep it closed off indefinitely. We have to assume that if this Dominion incursion does not meet with success that they will attempt to send another task force… one better equipped, and one we will likely be unable to repulse. We cannot chance them finding intact research data and using it to reverse engineer weapons for their own use.”


That, and we probably don’t want the news of this fact coming to light to general public. We wouldn’t want anyone having second thoughts about who are the Good guys!

“I doubt we can get a relief team to you in time, Omega Lead. You’ll have to make do as best you can.” The right corner of his mouth rose slightly in a half-smirk. “May I suggest the Lieutenant put her university education to use?”


Maybe you can finds some things that go BOOM! lying around. ;)

Falynn ignored it. “Roger, Command. Omega Team proceeding with mission. Out.” She shut down the communications link and turned to the rest of the group. “You heard the man, folks. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get to it.”


Wish you hadn’t called, eh, Lynn? ;)

#3 Guest_Cel_*

Posted 06 July 2006 - 10:58 AM

Falynn nodded, pulled off her helmet, and ran a hand through the sweaty, tangled mess that was her hair. She intentionally kept it short (fairly) to avoid just such an occurrence. Apparently, it wasn’t short enough, she thought to herself, wincing as her fingers hung themselves up on a knotted clump.


Isn’t that like the first ever vague suggestion about Raven’s looks? ;) In any case, good to see. :wink:


There is a description or two in the earliest chapters, which I am currently reading :evil: (Auburn shoulder length hair, browner than Imoen's, longer than Imoen's, and she is slightly taller, slightly heavier and slightly more curvy than Imoen, otherwise they are practically identical. IIRC from the bit I read last night :lol: )

#4 Guest_VigaHrolf_*

Posted 06 July 2006 - 04:00 PM

“Well enough, Major…” It was a rare instance when Boo went into “audio only” mode, but at the moment, almost all of her processing power was being channeled into breaking the security encryption protecting the data the team desperately needed to find and access. What little of her “consciousness” that remained was being devoted to sorting through that data and filing it away in places where it could be more easily regurgitated. That left her with practically nothing left to spare for the “niceties” of projecting a visual image, especially one as demanding as her normal polygon-intensive hamster-form. “Should have the rest of this information decrypted and processed fairly soon. About another minute or so at the most.”


Why waste cycles for cute fuzziness? There's a job to do!

Falynn nodded, pulled off her helmet, and ran a hand through the sweaty, tangled mess that was her hair. She intentionally kept it short (fairly) to avoid just such an occurrence. Apparently, it wasn’t short enough, she thought to herself, wincing as her fingers hung themselves up on a knotted clump. “Good. Keep at it. Two, Seven? What’s the status on communications?”


Imoen: "Helmet hair. Yuck."

Aerie: "I.. indeed. It can take a w..while to work it loose."

Imoen: "Thus the 'yuck' Aerie." *grins*

Cipher kicked herself a short distance away from the computer terminal she was seated at, and spun her swivel chair around in a half circle. She flashed a small smile. “Comm lines are back up, Major… operators are standing by.”


Orc troops, call now! :wink:

Falynn smiled. “Nice to see you, Colonel.”


Hopefully no one woke Keldorn up from his nap. He gets cranky then. :evil:

“Well, considering we’re buried about eight miles underground, locked in some mostly-abandoned deathtrap with a reinforced assault platoon of orcs who are probably in possession of several extremely lethal Confed weapons prototypes… not all that bad.”


Bran: "Sounds like some weeks we had, eh V?"

Valygar: "More than a few."

Bran: "Ah those were the... well, we lived."

Valygar: "Surprisingly."

Colonel Keldorn Firecam valiantly fought back the urge to roll his eyes and sigh in frustration. Instead, he simply responded with a bland “Of course.”


The Colonel is well experienced with his field commander. :lol:

“Understood. The nature of the research projects?”

Raven frowned as she delivered the news. “Confirmed to be weaponry, sir. Exact nature is unknown… believed to be biogenic or viral…”


And there it is. The big secret has been pumped into the commlogs.

The statement had clearly caught the Colonel by surprise, causing him to choke on what he was going to say next. Firecam had developed a reputation for the utmost of grace under fire. That reputation was well-deserved, and had been proven many times on the battlefield, but even his normal, implacable calm couldn’t stand up to this brand of news. The Confederation had, as far as he knew (And truly, he knew a fair bit), strictly held itself to the various treaties banning the development or use of such weaponry. To be told that someone in the Confederation, perhaps someone even sanctioned by the Confederation government itself, had endorsed this line of research, was a rather sizable shock. “Major, say again?”


Bran: "I wouldn't want to be the Old Man here. If yours is anything like mine, he's a good man, honest and noble to a fault. Crafty as hell, but this is the kind of thing guaranteed to make him do something."

“Repeating: Experimental weaponry believed to be biogenic in nature… analysis of local files corroborates, but does not completely confirm this theory.” She briefly turned away from the screen, speaking to someone seated next to her. “Wait one, Colonel,” she said, momentarily holding up a single finger within the capture range of the receiving camera.


Translation: "Yeah, I don't believe this shit either."

“Ensign,” she whispered to Nalia, “how secure is this uplink?”

“As secure as I can make it, Major.”

“Can you handle a UV-level encrypt?”

“In my sleep.” With an air of casualness surrounding her, Cipher punched a few keys on her board. “Transmission is encoded. Are you planning on sending the Colonel the reports we pulled from the computer systems here?”


Bran: "I have got to steal me a comm tech that good. Mine is hell of an engineer and theorist, amongst other things, but not quite the comm whiz. Neither is Immy."

“Yes, I am. Not that I’m questioning your abilities or anything, but I want to be absolutely sure this transmission is secure. I don’t want the information we’ve obtained leaking out… to anyone.”

“It won’t,” Nalia promised.

“You’re certain?”

“99.5%.”


Bran: "She means provided that the other end is secure or someone with her Godlike abilities is sitting right on top of the comm transmission, it'd be harder to get into than a nun's panties."

Valygar: "Well, the Sharessan Faithful..."

Bran: "I meant nuns. Not women devoted to a particular faith. Like Sharessans."

Valygar: "Right."

Falynn gestured to the comm tech seated next to her and Nalia set to work. She’d gimmicked up a little bit of programming script to take all the necessary files, and run them through three levels of encoding before feeding the encrypted batch-files to the Gallante’s computers. On the receiving side of the equation, the Gallante’s crypto specialist was cracking her knuckles and digging into the incoming signal, pulling all the pieces apart, and tossing them through a programming sifter to separate the real data from the chaff thrown in alongside it. This process, however, was going mostly unnoticed by the two “brass” officers.


Well... and there it is. Something that's bound to send shockwaves through the Confed.

“Transfer in progress,” Falynn said. “What follows is the research data we believe the Dominion copied from the local file servers.” She smirked. “It doesn’t take a bioweapons specialist to figure out that we don’t want the orcs getting their grubby, little mitts on this and feeding it to their science caste.”


Er... no. Unless you're just going to feed the product to them. Via aerosol dispersal.

“Cut off from their extraction point at the moment, but that situation won’t last very long. Request that you secure the perimeter to cut off all egress points from the facility. Blueprints for the research base follow. Likely points of exfiltration are marked.”


Translation: "Please smack these mothers for us."

Bran: "Or, send the cavalry."

“Omega One copies. Do you have further orders for us, sir?”

“Not at the mom-“ He cut himself off. “Stand by…”


Bran: "Oh crap."

There were several seconds of relative silence on the line, during which, Falynn assumed, the Colonel was conferring with someone else. When those seconds had passed, he reappeared on the vidscreen. “Amend that, Major. Admiral Kirtanis has been informed of the current situation. He has requested I pass along a direct order from him.”


Bran: "I always hated it when Admirals decided to descend from their mighty thrones and meddle in the affairs of others. Nothing good ever came of it."

“Major, to be perfectly candid with you, the Admiral is not at all happy about your discovery.”


As in, he just had a hissy fit and bitchslapped his flag lieutenant for a whole minute. ;)

“Yes, sir. I can imagine, sir. Biological and chemical weapons were outlawed years ago.”

“Correct. This begs the question: what was a high-level Confederation research base doing developing outlawed weaponry? The Admiral wants a full report, Major. The data transmission we just received is very comprehensive, but there must be more to it than what’s been kept in the official records.”


Bran: "Oh crap. A good old fashioned peep and creep. With the objective of 'Find out more stuff'. Damn."

“I think I see where this is going, Colonel.”

“You are to bring back any and all pertinent information you can find. Experiment logs and notes, tabulated data… bring back the researchers’ personal journals if you can find the things. We need you to be as thorough as possible. Scour that base, then destroy all records that you do not take with you.”


Bran: "Raven? I'm sorry."

Falynn blinked in mild confusion. “Sir?”

“The facility has clearly been compromised, Major, and we don’t have the resources to keep it closed off indefinitely. We have to assume that if this Dominion incursion does not meet with success that they will attempt to send another task force… one better equipped, and one we will likely be unable to repulse. We cannot chance them finding intact research data and using it to reverse engineer weapons for their own use.”


They're going to blow the base.

“Understood. And if we find more prototype weapon canisters?”

“Destroy them.”

Falynn tried but failed to stifle a slightly frustrated sigh. “Sir, that may be a problem.” She turned towards Imoen, who frowned and shook her head. “Demolitions is reporting inadequate resources for the job.”


Imoen: "When you need more than the demo team's load out to do your splodies... not good."

“I never thought I’d hear you say that, Major,” he replied, his voice tinged with a mildly sardonic note.

Falynn chuckled. “Me neither, sir.”


Bran: "I think the percent chance the universe may just suffer a Sudden Massive Existence Failure just jumped about 10 percent."

“I doubt we can get a relief team to you in time, Omega Lead. You’ll have to make do as best you can.” The right corner of his mouth rose slightly in a half-smirk. “May I suggest the Lieutenant put her university education to use?”

“That would be a first…”

Imoen, who was unabashedly eavesdropping on the conversation, contorted her face into an expression of lightly irritated disgust. She stuck her tongue out. “Ha. Ha.”

Falynn ignored it. “Roger, Command. Omega Team proceeding with mission. Out.” She shut down the communications link and turned to the rest of the group. “You heard the man, folks. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get to it.”


And now.. deeper and deeper into the bowels of the beast...

God knows what they're going to find.

Good chapter Alpha. Very good.

VH

#5 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 06 July 2006 - 08:51 PM

So sayeth The Voice of Boo.


And the voice of Boo is the voice of...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortana

:wink:

Isn’t that like the first ever vague suggestion about Raven’s looks?


Cel's right. There have been others. What do you want me to tell you? She looks similar to Imoen. I used the BG-1 Imoen portrait for Falynn in BG-2. ;)

But if that's not clear enough for you, here's one of Jill Valentine from Resident Evil. Just reduce the size of her chest, and you have our girl Raven. ;)

http://i13.photobuck...ouglas/Jill.jpg

Whee! (squeals like a fangirl (well, almost)) It’s Keldorn!


He is THE MAN. ;)

Yeah, they’ve been in tighter spots before, right? I mean… right?


Not really, no.

Might in the worst case scenario warrant blasting the planet out of space to prevent the Dominion from unleashing the weapon…


Well, for one... no Death Star superlasers, so no blasting planets out of space... for another, they're on a Confederation world with Confederation citizens on it. And lastly, even if they did blow up the planet, what if the Dominon managed to get the stuff off-world? Blowing up the planet doesn't help. ;)

Cipher is finally in her element – she must be relishing this after looking somewhat out of depth in combat situations.


Cipher: "Computers are a lot easier to understand than guns, that's for sure."

Orcs have science caste?


Yes. The Dominion works on a caste system... worker/warrior/religious. :evil:

And science... ;)

Gee, I’m sorry for stumbling over your bucket of dirty laundry, you complete piece of fat, bureaucratic ass.


Actually, Quinn's a real fighting-man's leader... not the kind to sit in the back and blame people. :lol:

That, and we probably don’t want the news of this fact coming to light to general public. We wouldn’t want anyone having second thoughts about who are the Good guys!


You say this jokingly, but this concept gets important.

Maybe you can finds some things that go BOOM! lying around.


Hellooooooo... underground, secret weapons research labs? Full of things that go boom. ;)

#6 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 06 July 2006 - 08:52 PM

There is a description or two in the earliest chapters, which I am currently reading


(Snickers) I thought you said BG-sci-fi gave you the willies? :wink:

#7 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 06 July 2006 - 09:08 PM

Why waste cycles for cute fuzziness? There's a job to do!


Crack those codes, and don't spare the RAM! :wink:

Imoen: "Helmet hair. Yuck."

Aerie: "I.. indeed. It can take a w..while to work it loose."

Imoen: "Thus the 'yuck' Aerie." *grins*


Raven: "Well, I don't complain about the helmet hair so much these days. Last time I did, my sister shaved my head while I was asleep."

Orc troops, call now!


Your very own platoon of Dominion infantry for 500 easy payments of $9,999.99!

The Colonel is well experienced with his field commander.


Paladin: "She does take... well... some getting used to."

And there it is. The big secret has been pumped into the commlogs.


Yep. And now stuff is going to be hitting the fan pretty soon.

Bran: "I wouldn't want to be the Old Man here. If yours is anything like mine, he's a good man, honest and noble to a fault. Crafty as hell, but this is the kind of thing guaranteed to make him do something ."


Raven: "This is true. But lucky for his, his... somethings... usually end up saving our collective asses at some point... so while I don't envy him having to make a tough decision, I'm glad it's him who has to make it."

Bran: "I have got to steal me a comm tech that good. Mine is hell of an engineer and theorist, amongst other things, but not quite the comm whiz. Neither is Immy."


Raven: "Right, well, between me and Jan we have plenty of engineering experience. And Imoen can fill in in a pinch."

Bran: "She means provided that the other end is secure or someone with her Godlike abilities is sitting right on top of the comm transmission, it'd be harder to get into than a nun's panties."


Cipher: "They say a Lieutenant Lefler from the Gallante's crypto department is on the other end of the transmission. They say she's good."

Harlequin: "Robin's -very- good."

Translation: "Please smack these mothers for us."


Or, if this were Counterstrike: "Three AFKs at the CT respawn. Free kills!" :lol:

Bran: "I always hated it when Admirals decided to descend from their mighty thrones and meddle in the affairs of others. Nothing good ever came of it."


Raven: "Normally, I'd agree with you... but this Admiral's got a ton of nice, shiny medals... and unlike some folks, he earned most of those thirty years ago when he was a destroyer skipper and charging enemy carriers to make torpedo runs. I respect that."

As in, he just had a hissy fit and bitchslapped his flag lieutenant for a whole minute.


Quinn can be a little tempermental. :evil:

Imoen: "When you need more than the demo team's load out to do your splodies... not good."


Harlequin: "Well, to be fair, we -are- talking about square miles of corridors and underground caverns and such... and it's not really a demo -team-, per se... just me."

Bran: "I think the percent chance the universe may just suffer a Sudden Massive Existence Failure just jumped about 10 percent."


I don't like those odds. ;)

#8 Guest_Cel_*

Posted 07 July 2006 - 09:55 AM

There is a description or two in the earliest chapters, which I am currently reading


(Snickers) I thought you said BG-sci-fi gave you the willies? :evil:


Yes, but your commentaries were too amusing so I caved in :lol: (I just do what I used to do when I read Star Wars novels; I skim the combat and tech heavy paragraphs :wink: )

#9 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 09 July 2006 - 02:11 PM

I just do what I used to do when I read Star Wars novels; I skim the combat and tech heavy paragraphs


As you can probably tell, I like combat sections... and even some tech-heavy sections... though there are some people around here who can blow even -me- away with technobabble. (He knows who he is. :) )

Come to think of it, though, I haven't read a Star Wars novel since the end of Del Rey's New Jedi Order stuff... I'd never been a big fan of prequel books, so after the NJO I just stopped reading Wars entirely... which is a shame since I adore the franchise. Any good ones out there that I should look into?

And oh yeah, I still say one of the best blends of combat writing and other generally-fun writing in an SW novel set has got to be the collection of Wraith Squadron novels. Aaron Allston is the man. :roll:

Anyway, yeah, I've tried to make the Omega storyline... interesting... enough on its own that it wouldn't bore the hell out of people who aren't necessarily hard-line into military sci-fi and such... I hope it's working. ;)

#10 Guest_Userunfriendly_*

Posted 10 July 2006 - 06:46 AM

Cipher kicked herself a short distance away from the computer terminal she was seated at, and spun her swivel chair around in a half circle. She flashed a small smile. “Comm lines are back up, Major… operators are standing by.”


only fourty nine ninty five for your amazing presto combination bottle opener and re-grouting tool...

Her perfunctory joke out of the way, Falynn got down to the brass tacks of her report. “Sir, we have reason to believe that the Dominion assault force looted the research labs in the complex and that they are now attempting to exfil from the facility with data critical to replicating the experiments that were being performed here. They may also be in possession of a viable prototype, but we have no means of confirming that, as yet.”


yoiks...viable virus cultures?

The statement had clearly caught the Colonel by surprise, causing him to choke on what he was going to say next. Firecam had developed a reputation for the utmost of grace under fire. That reputation was well-deserved, and had been proven many times on the battlefield, but even his normal, implacable calm couldn’t stand up to this brand of news. The Confederation had, as far as he knew (And truly, he knew a fair bit), strictly held itself to the various treaties banning the development or use of such weaponry. To be told that someone in the Confederation, perhaps someone even sanctioned by the Confederation government itself, had endorsed this line of research, was a rather sizable shock. “Major, say again?”


it just means that someone high up in the confed didn't have absolute faith in the inevitable triumph of freedom, justice and the confed way of life over the vile orcs...

“Cut off from their extraction point at the moment, but that situation won’t last very long. Request that you secure the perimeter to cut off all egress points from the facility. Blueprints for the research base follow. Likely points of exfiltration are marked.”


well, one way of securing the egress points is to collapse them..i'm sure the admiral will think of this sooner or later..

Falynn tried but failed to stifle a slightly frustrated sigh. “Sir, that may be a problem.” She turned towards Imoen, who frowned and shook her head. “Demolitions is reporting inadequate resources for the job.”


jaime hyneman: Not enough kaboom? :lol:

“I doubt we can get a relief team to you in time, Omega Lead. You’ll have to make do as best you can.” The right corner of his mouth rose slightly in a half-smirk. “May I suggest the Lieutenant put her university education to use?”


well, the classic movie solution is to overload the reactor...

Falynn ignored it. “Roger, Command. Omega Team proceeding with mission. Out.” She shut down the communications link and turned to the rest of the group. “You heard the man, folks. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get to it.”


why do i get the feeling that the discovery of who exactly was behind this research base is information more dangerous than a nuclear bomb? ;) :shock: :wink: :cry:

#11 Guest_Cel_*

Posted 10 July 2006 - 11:41 AM

Come to think of it, though, I haven't read a Star Wars novel since the end of Del Rey's New Jedi Order stuff... I'd never been a big fan of prequel books, so after the NJO I just stopped reading Wars entirely... which is a shame since I adore the franchise. Any good ones out there that I should look into?


I suspect you've read more than me. I hated roughly half of the pre-NJO books and stopped reading the NJO roughly a book or two after ****** died, and there are several before that that I never read. (My first two pieces of writing were two SW fanfics about 7 years ago. 4 years later, I was baffled and amused to find that two Tim Zahn books had similarities to my stories. His were written first, though :shock: )

And oh yeah, I still say one of the best blends of combat writing and other generally-fun writing in an SW novel set has got to be the collection of Wraith Squadron novels. Aaron Allston is the man. :wink:


OH yes. I don't remember a thing about the Stackpole books, but I definitely remember bits of the Allston books (especially Janson :cry: )

Anyway, yeah, I've tried to make the Omega storyline... interesting... enough on its own that it wouldn't bore the hell out of people who aren't necessarily hard-line into military sci-fi and such... I hope it's working. :lol:


It is ;)

#12 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 10 July 2006 - 04:45 PM

only fourty nine ninty five for your amazing presto combination bottle opener and re-grouting tool...


Don't forget the part where we explain how it's made of solid titanium!

:wink:

yoiks...viable virus cultures?


Otherwise known as "Uh oh."

it just means that someone high up in the confed didn't have absolute faith in the inevitable triumph of freedom, justice and the confed way of life over the vile orcs...


Seeing as how the Dominion has more ships, more troops, and more of just about everything war-related, well, I can see why some people might have been feeling a bit pessimistic.

well, one way of securing the egress points is to collapse them..i'm sure the admiral will think of this sooner or later..


Right, but you still need to get people to all of those points in order to collapse them... and sometimes you can't do a foolproof job of collapsing tunnels, either... it's not just a question of using lots of explosives. Granted, that helps, but even so...

jaime hyneman: Not enough kaboom?


Jaime want big boom!

well, the classic movie solution is to overload the reactor...


Right. Just trigger a warp core breach, and we're all set. :cry:

why do i get the feeling that the discovery of who exactly was behind this research base is information more dangerous than a nuclear bomb?


Because that's what happens in all the action movies you've ever seen? :shock:

#13 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 10 July 2006 - 04:57 PM

I suspect you've read more than me. I hated roughly half of the pre-NJO books and stopped reading the NJO roughly a book or two after ****** died, and there are several before that that I never read.


Well, you're not the only one who hated half the pre-NJO books. Does anyone actually -like- Kevin J. Anderson's work? Seriously? I mean, c'mon. But yeah, I started with the original Zahn trilogy back when it was first published. Then read everything Bantam put out afterwards. Really... everything. Even read some of the older Del Rey books, like the ones they had about Han... didn't read Splinter of the Mind's Eye, but I'm familiar with it...

And then Del Rey got the license and did the NJO which I finished even though it definitely had some ugly moments... but it did have MJ in it, and I'm a Jade fanboy. :lol:

Aside from that, only a couple of the prequel novels... not many... two, maybe. Also read the two Republic Commando novels... those are awesome. It's Star Wars, it's sci-fi, it's -military- sci-fi, and it's military, Special Ops, sci-fi... some of my favorite things. ;)

My first two pieces of writing were two SW fanfics about 7 years ago. 4 years later, I was baffled and amused to find that two Tim Zahn books had similarities to my stories.


Ah, Star Wars fanfic. I've been there... I've paid my dues in that department... stuff I hope no one will ever see... and likely, no one ever will since the most "exposure" it got was me printing it out and giving it to a friend of mine. :cry:

(especially Janson)


Everyone loves Wes. ;) And yeah, why do you think Falynn is named... well... Falynn? :shock:

My version isn't from Tatooine, though... and doesn't have as much of a potty-mouth. :wink:

#14 Weyoun

Posted 16 July 2006 - 10:02 PM

Nalia’s fingers flickered over the keyboard, typing in commands almost faster than she could have said them out loud. A confusing (to the uninitiated) mass of numbers, text, and seemingly random punctuation flowed across the screen, eventually coming to a halt after several seconds. The display blanked, a blinking cursor near the top left the only indication that the computer terminal was still functioning. There was a brief burst of static, and then an image began to resolve itself: it was the bridge of the Gallante, and the face of its operations and communications officer. Another face appeared slightly behind it, looking over the other officer’s shoulder.


Falynn smiled. “Nice to see you, Colonel.”


“Likewise, Major. What’s your status?”


Fubar? :D

“Well, considering we’re buried about eight miles underground, locked in some mostly-abandoned deathtrap with a reinforced assault platoon of orcs who are probably in possession of several extremely lethal Confed weapons prototypes… not all that bad.”


That means fubar. :D

“Agreed. Current status of the Dominion assault team?”


'Trying to kill us?' :)

“Major, to be perfectly candid with you, the Admiral is not at all happy about your discovery.”


when are admirals ever happy? :roll:

“I doubt we can get a relief team to you in time, Omega Lead. You’ll have to make do as best you can.” The right corner of his mouth rose slightly in a half-smirk. “May I suggest the Lieutenant put her university education to use?”


“That would be a first…”


Spend most of the time playing Dnd, sawing heads off statues and boozing, ey, Im? :lol:

Imoen, who was unabashedly eavesdropping on the conversation, contorted her face into an expression of lightly irritated disgust. She stuck her tongue out. “Ha. Ha.”


Falynn ignored it. “Roger, Command. Omega Team proceeding with mission. Out.” She shut down the communications link and turned to the rest of the group. “You heard the man, folks. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get to it.”


Where's Vixen, btw? :lol:
TnT Enhanced Edition: http://www.fanfictio...rds-and-Tempers

---
Sith Warrior - Master, I can sense your anger.

Darth Baras - A blind, comotose lobotomy-patient could sense my anger!

---

"The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds" - James Randi

#15 Guest_Theodur_*

Posted 17 July 2006 - 04:10 AM


Falynn ignored it. “Roger, Command. Omega Team proceeding with mission. Out.” She shut down the communications link and turned to the rest of the group. “You heard the man, folks. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get to it.”


Where's Vixen, btw? :lol:


Now look here, I'm supposed to be asking that! :D

You are supposed to be interested as to where is Tempest. :D

#16 Weyoun

Posted 17 July 2006 - 05:00 AM



Falynn ignored it. “Roger, Command. Omega Team proceeding with mission. Out.” She shut down the communications link and turned to the rest of the group. “You heard the man, folks. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get to it.”



Where's Vixen, btw? :lol:


Now look here, I'm supposed to be asking that! :lol:


You are supposed to be interested as to where is Tempest. :roll:


Eeep! Mixed up callsigns! :D Tempest, where are you?! :D
TnT Enhanced Edition: http://www.fanfictio...rds-and-Tempers

---
Sith Warrior - Master, I can sense your anger.

Darth Baras - A blind, comotose lobotomy-patient could sense my anger!

---

"The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds" - James Randi

#17 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 17 July 2006 - 04:32 PM

Fubar?


Raven: "Oh yeah. TARFU. Really... TARFU."

when are admirals ever happy?


When they first take command of a shiny, new supercarrier? Who doesn't want a ship like that all for themselves? :D

Spend most of the time playing Dnd, sawing heads off statues and boozing, ey, Im?


Harlequin: "That, and pelting the admin building with eggs launched from the homemade trebuchet Lynn and I set up on the roof of our dorm."

Raven: :D "That was awesome."

Where's Vixen, btw?


Who? :lol:

#18 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 17 July 2006 - 04:32 PM

You are supposed to be interested as to where is Tempest.


(Snicker) Onoz! Mistaken identity!

(Gasp) Oh noes!

:lol:

#19 Guest_AlphaMonkey_*

Posted 17 July 2006 - 04:33 PM

Tempest, where are you?!


She's safe and sound aboard the Gallante... probably in the middle of her Sick Bay shift... probably finding some poor, hapless young ensign to molest... :lol:




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