My word processor doesn't convert well to html, so there are some odd formating problems. (such as the removal of all tabs.) Besides those tell me what you think!
Chapter 1: Judgement
Segment 1: Arrival
Chloe was nervous, this would be the second time that she would go beyond the known planes into a universe completely different from what she was used to. But if the information was correct and there where indeed others besides Cy and those sworn to him using Solenoid technology... if they chose to repent then they would live. Perhaps she could also bring a little of Cy's wisdom to that place, and take back some more improvements for her own people as well. They had barely gotten the steam engines to work, fusion power still looked a long way off.
She looked around in anticipation of adventure, something that she had not had for a few years, running the country took so much time. Chloe had a knife in each hand hidden inside her cloak but ready all the same, each of her senses trying to experience everything all at once. The cavern was dim, and a human would have had a hard time even seeing the huge dragon behind her. Her sight was unimpeded, showing the rough wall at the edge of this cavern where she also had departed last time, it brought back memories. She could hear the huff of the dragon's breath as it chanted the words of power, she could feel the thump of it's heart, she could smell the spellbook he was using even over the remains of his last meal, the smell of mystdale spicewine so thick that she could almost taste it. She could sense the magical power around her building.
Then it happened. She felt the magic of the dragon mage seize her an almost euphoric flow of power filling her. The world disappeared, her senses could not detect anything, but the vast magic enveloping her. She prepared herself and went into a combat stance, you never knew where you would appear with this spell. The world returned, but one thing was certain she wasn't in her own world anymore. She recognized the steady drone that only came from machines, the sickly sweet smell of oil, and all the other markers of a technological civilization. She smelled and heard the man before she whirled around to face him, still keeping the knives concealed and trying to appear nonthreatening, but ready to defend herself.
***
Jake turned the corner and saw a small girl probably around nine years old with purple hair and a chocolate brown skin, wearing an eyewrenchingly black cloak. He almost reached for his gun in surprise but stopped himself before coming even close. Reasoning that she's not a threat and probably just the result of some fun one of the guys had a few years back. Figuring that her father probably wouldn't like it if he shot his daughter, and considering how such conflicts where resolved among the Dragonfang pirates.... So he asked her in what he thought of as a friendly tone:
"Hey you, who's your daddy?"
"None of your business." Came the bitter reply from Chloe, who didn't care for his leering tone or the reminder of Laucilol.
"Why you, you better answer me or I'll take you to the captain! The feared Laucilol The Marauder, he's even feared by the Taiidani Empress!" Shot back the enraged Jake. The threat was empty of course he had no desire to be face to face with Laucilol ever if he could help it, but he was sure that the threat would work. Laucilol was probably (no clue if this is true or not, probably the later, this is one of his crew so there are bound to have overinflated opinion of him/themselves) the most feared pirate in the Taiidani Sector. At the moment they where heading through AAnn territory, going all the way to the Humanx Commonwealth since the heat was getting a bit to much in Taiidani space.
To his surprise and fear she smiled and cocked her head to the side, exposing a pointed ear. "Laucilol?" She said almost as if she was tasting the word, she laughed gently, "I think I would like to see him right now."
Jake felt cold, he knew of only one person with pointed ears and dark skin... Laucilol. Oh $#it. Snapping to attention, while saluting and bowing at the same time, he said; "Of course mistress, right this way." Meanwhile Jack was cursing himself for attempting to threaten Laucilol's daughter. But she seemed amused, so he might survive, or so he thought.
"I should really have paid more attention when that demon was threatening Dad, what was it, forty years ago?" Reminisced Chloe silently, "Something like that at least, I was next in line for sacrifice. Too bad I'll have to make this quick and won't be able to use all those wonderful suggestions, after all I'm probably surrounded by hostiles loyal to Laucilol." Through those thoughts Chloe's face that she had kept pleasant so far twisted.
Her smile turned vicious, vanished, and reappeared as a vile frown, the most striking thing about her visage now the virulent hate in her violent violet eyes promising vengeance. Chloe immediately went back to the cheerful and happy mask she had at first, trying not to think about how much she hated Laucilol, but on how this could not possibly be the same person. He had died over fifteen years ago in another universe far away, this Laucilol had committed no Crimes that she knew of, she needed to know more before acting.
Jack was just silently marching ahead of her his footsteps almost painfully loud to her ears. The others she saw where much like the guy in front of her. Most of the corridors where bare, and dirty.
"What is your name?" Asked Chloe.
"Huh," asked a confused Jack dazed from his thoughts of doom before realizing that she was talking to him, "oh it's Jack. Just Jack I have no last name."
"Talk." The command was simple direct and completely caught Jack by surprise.
"Uhm, about what?"
"Tell me a story." Came the short and to Jacks mind not very helpful reply.
"What kind of story?"
"You pick, maybe something you did, or a legend among the crew, or an exciting battle you where in. Whatever."
And Chloe listened, with occasional prompting when he stopped. She learned much of the world she was in. Many people had FTL here, not at all like the last time. Telepaths where appallingly common here too, and magic was know. There where also similarities to other tech-worlds she visited, but all in all this was too different to base anything of those assumptions.
Then they stopped. They stood in front of a plain grey door, and Jack was shivering. Chloe could smell his fear. The corridor was empty except for them, this part of the ship was much better looking than the rest, and there where even less people than in the rest of the ship.
"Uhm, Laucilol is behind this door. He'll not be pleased if you interrupt his playtime with the slaves." Explained Jack.
"I understand. You may go now."
Jack happily obeyed the dismissal. "Disturbing family," thought Jack, "though I wonder who the mother is. And if she's still alive. Probably not. I wonder why I haven't ever heard of her before?"
***
Chloe waited for Jack to leave before entering. The scene in the large room was what many would have described as a scene from hell, Chloe had seen worse before, and she wouldn't call it a . Generous amounts of blood littered the area, and quite a few corpses. The faces, of the dead and the living, if they still had them in a recognizable form, where locked into grimaces of pain. Some people where still alive and screamed quite abundantly except for a few attached to the right wall in various painful looking ways. Some of the slaves where still unharmed in cages, future victims, thought Chloe familiar with the procedure, letting the quarry see what will happen to them.
"What who are you?!?! How dare you interrupt my play time?!?!" Cried a furious Laucilol looking up from his current 'toy'. He was dressed in an odd form of armor, consisting of a chest plate that didn't cover his lower torso, a pair of bracers, and a pair of shin guards. The armor was colored blood red, and below it he wore a deep blue jumpsuit. The entire outfit was decorated with silver and gold designs giving it a more ceremonial look than functional. Laucilol himself was dark-skinned, somewhat darker than Chloe, piercing blue eyes, his long white hair drawn back into a ponytail, and two pointed ears that revealed his race as something else than human, a Drow. He also had a sword hanging at his left hip, and a humongous gun of some sort on the other.
He put down the scalpel he was using to entertain himself with the boy. "A pity that he wouldn't last much longer and he would have to move on to the next one. His mother will do fine." Thought Laucilol with a grin of anticipation at the beautiful screams he was going to hear, before pulling himself back to the situation at hand.
"I'm Chloe. How do you do?" Asked Chloe with her best British accent, then her voice turned hard and threatening, "Cease and repent and Cy may still forgive you. Being a slaver is a Crime." You could almost hear the capital on that word.
Chloe was visually examining the boy on the table, from what she knew of humans this one could be barely five. He would not live much longer without help. In each hand, two more knives joined the one already there.
"Heh," answered Laucilol, "cocky aren't you? Well I'll have fun playing with you."
"So be it. May thou experience eternal pain and suffering." Even before Chloe finished her pronouncement six knifes went flying, They were grouped tightly with about 10cm between each blade the pattern was designed to be almost impossible to dodge. But Laucilol was fast, and illegal cyberware boosted it sufficiently that he was able to jump to the side, becoming only lightly grazed by a single knife. Only to immediately jump up as two more knives thunked into the place where he was a moment ago. He realized his mistake too late and while he was in the air and unable to dodge two knives hit him in his chest and bit deep into him cutting through armor, flesh, and bone with equal ease.
Laucilol cried out in pain, but he was relatively unharmed, and he finally got his sword out of its scabbard. He immediately tumbled away from his landing place looking at the place where Chloe was a moment ago. She has disappeared, so Laucilol cautiously approached the place, checking if she's hiding behind one of the corpses. Suddenly he jumped to the right on instinct, a mere moment before high explosive armor piercing bullets ripped the area and his right leg to shreds.
A few rooms away.
"Did you hear those explosions? Should we check on Laucilol?"
"Are you crazy, do you know what he'll do if it's a false alarm? He's probably just stuffed some explosives in one of those wretches again just to see the reactions of the others. Do you remember what happened when someone interrupted his play session that time?"
"You are probably right."
Laucilol frantically turned and faced at the area where the bullets came from, and just in time as Chloe is almost upon him with another one of those knives. Chloe barely dodged the first swing, and dived between his legs and then tumbled away just before Laucilol's sword passed through the area where her head had been a moment before. Using the brief respite of the missed swing Chloe drew her own sword. This time both combatants where a little more wary of the other.
Chloe barely managed to parry Laucilol's swing, and her eyes widened as her own sword which had managed to pierce gundanium without problems and which had proven sharper than a dragon claws was nicked by Laucilol's sword. It was only a small nick to be sure, and a human would not have been able to see it, but she had thought the sword unbreakable. Her hesitation proved to her advantage, as it made Laucilol overconfident thinking that he was up against a novice swordfighter. On his next thrust Laucilol overextended himself, and Chloe grabbed his hand and applied a twist, and pulls. Suddenly Laucilol was on the other side of Chloe looking up at the ceiling his broken wrist was still grasped firmly in her hand. For the first time in a long time Laucilol knew fear. Chloe just swung her sword in a low arc and slit his throat.
Chloe turned and started walking away thinking Laucilol safely disposed of, but something was worrying her. There it was again, just barely heard over the wails of the prisoners. Laucilol's heartbeat. Chloe threw herself to the side and whirled around as a bolt of energy flew through the mane of hair following her.
"I can't be killed foolish human!"
Chloe griped one of her 'Earth-shaker' revolvers, after having retrieved it from wherever the cloak stored it, and tried to bring it to bear on Laucilol. But she couldn't aim properly with all her concentration on dodging the shots. Time for a distraction.
"I'm not human, look closely."
Laucilol froze, "No, there can't be another of my kind!" He thought fearfully as he finnaly noticed her ears and realized too late that Chloe was aiming for him. He dodged a massive 20mm high explosive shell, which tore the area he was standing on apart, doing a fair amount of damage to him, but already it was visibly regenerating. Chloe fell and slid backwards from the recoil of the gun. She rolled to the side, but Laucilol's shot hit next to her and the floor turned into shrapnel. Most of it bounced of her cloak but one piece made a nasty gash on her forehead. Laucilol had somehow found the time to gather up his sword again and charged Chloe, who didn't get her sword back out in time. His powerful slash hit her in her chest and threw her across the room, her cloak prevented the sword from actually cutting Chloe, but it did little to stop it from transferring its kinetic energy.
Chloe however appreciated the distance this gave her, and did a somersault, landed with her feet on the wall, gripped the mighty gun in both hands, and shot. There was a deafening BOOM as the high explosive bullet ripped forth from the barrel in Laucilol's direction. Chloe crouched against the wall, letting her legs absorb the majority of the recoil. Laucilol almost dodged the shot, but this time it wasn't enough to escape the high explosive 20mm round.Before she could fall from the wall, Chloe jumped off in the direction of Laucilol's largest remaining piece; His head. Taking no chances, this time, Chloe aimed and fired the last round in the magazine into the head obliterating it completely. Then she sagged onto one knee, holding her side.
"Broken rib," she thought while prodding at where Laucilol had hit her with the sword, "only one. I was lucky, and stupid. I have definitely gotten rusty. First the others, then I'll take care of myself, maybe this will serve as a useful reminder."
When Chloe approached the barely living boy that Laucilol was torturing a woman in one of the cages cried out in fear for her son, which is understandable as Chloe started to gather a ball of green energy in her hands while she mumbled and gestured ancient words and symbols of power. The huge gash on her face that coated half her face in sticky red didn't help either, or the grimace of pain she had on her face.
"Please stop," pleaded the mother of the boy, "He's my only remaining child. If you must take a life take mine"
Chloe seemed to completely ignore her, then the ball concentrated into her hands and she laid them on top of the kid. His condition stabilized and he finally fell into a restful slumber. Chloe then goes around to pick up the knives she threw, cleaning them on whatever is handy where they stuck in something. Finally she went around the are freeing the remaining slaves, applying bandages where necessary and keeping a wary eye on the door.
"Stay here, I'll try to come back for you. You are not safe until this ship has been pacified."
The former slaves where still too shocked to respond to all that had been happening, but one elderly man with an odd crest on his head nodded, and said: "I'll do as you say. You saved us all, my life is yours."
"Thank you." Answered Chloe while nodding to the man. And with that Chloe headed out to the rest of the ship. She had confirmed that the pirates had committed Crimes, and now their time to face judgement had come.
Segment 2: Slaughterhouse
Chloe peered down the corridor, two guards in light power armor guarding an open door. Probably something important. She took out her assault rifle and concentrated and gathered her power. She cast the spells 'Expeditious Retreat' on herself and 'Silence' between the two guards and moved.
"Something is wrong." Thought one of the guards, "Hey Jake do you also feel that something's off?" It took the guard half a second to realize just what felt wrong, he couldn't hear his voice, there was no sound! By that time it was too late, Chloe's assault rifle had reached the bubble of silence and the rounds tore the two guards apart in perfect silence. Unfortunately on of the officers on the bridge was looking that way when it happened.
Chloe didn't hear the cry of 'intruder' within the bubble of Silence, but the guns pointed at her through the doorway made the point very clear. She dodged most of the shots, and the one hit was dampened by the cloak, but even a dampened blaster shot hurts. Then a loud and painful whine started filling the air along with the repetitive words "Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert, last seen in front of the bridge, shoot to kill."
Chloe had a most unladylike reply to that. The door to the bridge had been closed and presumably locked. Seeing no one around, no scrying, and no cameras Chloe cast Invisibility on herself and started inspecting her now unseen leg.
"So much for the quiet takedown. Ouch." This last was added to her stream of thought when she touched the charred and bruised flesh that used to be her right thigh. It was bleeding, but not too badly. "Those blasts are dangerous, they destroyed my armor in a single shot. Slow rate of fire though." Though Chloe, while she reached for bandages to apply to her leg and a healing potion to speed up the recovery so that she could still fight.
"I shouldn't have gone after Laucilol unprepared for what he and his minions can do." Thought Chloe while heading away from the spot where she had rested. Sitting still was dangerous when the enemy was hunting her. Of course moving presented its own dangers.
***
Suddenly the ship shook and the sirens changed in pitch and now they where blaring something about an AAnn attack. Chloe had no clue who or what the AAnn where, but judging from the expressions of the crew members that passed her invisible form it was not a good thing.
Suddenly a voice rang out aver the clamor of crew members going in seemingly random directions, "Pierson, Pierson! You are with me on the secondary bridge, Takumi is at your post on the primary!"
"I thought we had a treaty with the AAnn." Said Pierson.
"We had, you know how the AAnn are."
"Might as well follow them," thought Chloe, "At least I'll get into a bridge."
***
"This will never do," thought Chloe, as she watched the secondary bridge crew running around in panic. She didn't know exactly what an AAnn cruiser and four destroyers where, but from the main screen she was drawing the assumption that they where large, blocky, ungraceful and ugly but carried a lot of weapons. The five ships where advancing in a square formation with the biggest ship in the middle and one of the smaller ships in each corner. Even as she was watching the battle on the monitor a large group of tuning fork shaped fighters left one of the three pirate ships and headed for the cruiser, releasing a truly impressive amount of what Chloe assumed to be missiles (they where Y-wings using torpedoes) at the largest ship.
The cruiser's point defenses took care of most of the torpedoes but those that got through blew apart weapon emplacements and knocked large gaps in the armor. The Y-wings now out of torpedoes split their efforts between the damaged cruiser that was slowly falling back and the destroyers which where still gaining on the pirates. The pilots of the Y-wings where either very good or insane.
As they bobbed and wove towards whatever ship they where targeting, taking potshots whenever their sights lined up with the ship, before leveling out at a distance of less than a meter, shooting at whatever stuck out enough from the ship to come in their sights. Before quite running out of ship to fly over the pilots then resumed their attack run on another ship, keeping between the two ships to discourage enemy fire. It was quite successful except for two things, the AAnn didn't seem to care if they hit their own ships too, and pilots frequently crashed into one of the AAnn ships.
As the AAnn kept gaining the lead pirate ship released their best fighters to assist the 20 remaining Y-wings, 5 new Kaark Attack Bombers and 7 X-wings. The new fighters initially concentrated on the 'upper left' ship which exploded into a quite impressive fireball, taking an x-wing and two Kaarks with it.
At that point the AAnn ships came within range t use their main guns on the fleeing pirates, and the smallest pirate ship, the one that released the Y-wings, went up in an impressive blue ball of fire that was easily twice the size of the ship as 3 heavy beam cannons focused on it.
The second pirate ship signaled it's surrender, but the AAnn's didn't care and was heavily damaged as two beam cannons focused on it next, the third destroyer being too heavily damaged by the remaining 2 Kaarks, 3 X-wings and 12 Y-wings.
The crippled pirate ship tried to at least do something and directed the ship on a collision course with one of the AAnn destroyers, but the AAnn reduced it to flying slag before they finished the maneuver, and then went on to the main pirate ship.
Chloe stood her ground in the secondary bridge, dodging the occasional flying technician as the AAnn fired on the last remaining pirate ship. Red lights where flashing, the normal lights where flickering, sirens blaring, and above it all shouts from the crew.
"Damage report!"
"Shields down! Hull breaches on decks 1 through 4! Sir the primary bridge is . . . gone."
"Uhm, I think we have a problem." Said Pierson from the sensor station.
"Yeah I'd say so." Came the sarcastic reply.
"Uhm, that's not what I meant. Uhm, you see we passed into Humanx space. And well uh, we seem to have found one of their, uhm, border patrols." Stammered Pierson. "Uhm they are hailing us and the AAnn. They demand our immediate surrender."
"We can't do that Laucilol would kill us!"
"Laucilol is dead." Replied Chloe, "I killed him. Signal your surrender and say you where captured by the bounty hunter Chloe."
"Who said that!?!" Voiced several crew members, but the one who was apparently in command replied, "Never!"
After he was neatly bisected the rest of the bridge crew proved far more responsive to their invisible captor's demands.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
>[Sarcasm]Wow, I didn't think my writing was so good that you are all too stunned to comment on it.[/Sarcasm]<
Lack of commentary isn't a _bad_ thing. It means there are no glaring errors, which is a good thing, ne? Personally, I liked it, it's a good batch which corrects the errors made in the previous one, and adds some reasonable new material. Sorry for the Brit approach, but I'm not feeling my usual perky self at the moment. Three hours of sleep for three days running do that to a person.
-Griever
committed the cardinal error of taking up several stories at the same time, as well as buying Grandia II a month before finals. Resigned to his fate.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
["Laucilol is dead." Replied Chloe, "I killed him. Signal your surrender and say you where captured by the bounty hunter Chloe."]
It would me more gramatically correct to set this as:
["Laucilol is dead," replied Chloe. "I killed him. Signal your surrender and say you where captured by the bounty hunter Chloe."]
This avoids sentences like:
[Replied Chloe, "I killed him."]
Opening a sentence with a verb isn't strictly speaking wrong, but it's unusual. And in this case the reply was ["Laucilol is dead."] which should therefore be part of the same sentence that states Chloe is replying.
drakensis
"You cannot possibly imagine that _tiny_ gun will hurt me?"
"Gun? What gun? _This_ is my remote control." *sound of heavy, heavy machinery moving* "_That_ is my gun."
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
if it's between [ and ] then I've altered it.
if it's between { and } then it's the reaons for the change.
[Chloe was nervous. This would be the second time that she would go beyond the known planes into a universe completely different from those she was used to.] But if the information was correct and there [were] indeed others [using Solenoid technology besides Cy and those sworn to him]... if they chose to repent then they would live. Perhaps she could also bring a little of Cy's wisdom to that place, and take back some more improvements for her own people as well. They had barely gotten the steam engines to work, fusion power still looked a long way off.
She looked around in anticipation of adventure, something that she had not had for a few years, running the country took so much time. Chloe had a knife in each hand[,] hidden inside her cloak but ready all the same, each of her senses trying to experience everything all at once. The cavern was dim, and a human would have had a hard time even seeing the huge dragon behind her. Her sight was unimpeded, showing the rough wall at the edge of this cavern where she also had departed last time[. It brought back memories. She could hear the huff of the dragon's breath as it chanted the words of power[... She] could feel the thump of it's heart[... She] could smell the spellbook he was using even over the remains of his last meal[...] the smell of mystdale spicewine so thick that she could almost taste it[... She could sense the magical power around her building.
{I've split the sentence here and changed the parragraph split to build momentum}
Then it happened.
She] felt the magic of the dragon mage seize her an almost euphoric flow of power filling her. The world disappeared, her senses could not detect anything, but the vast magic enveloping her. She prepared herself and went into a combat stance, you never knew where you would appear with this spell.
{You might want to relocate the combat stance to before the magic section - having time to adjust stance hwhile in transit doesn't feel right to me, and it makes more sense that she would have prepared her stance first}
The world returned, but one thing was certain she wasn't in her own world anymore. She recognized the steady drone that only came from machines, the sickly sweet smell of oil, and all the other markers of a technological civilization. She smelled and heard the man before she whirled around to face him, still keeping the knives concealed and trying to appear nonthreatening, but ready to defend herself.
***
Jake turned the corner and saw a small girl probably around nine years old with purple hair and a chocolate brown skin, wearing an eyewrenchingly black cloak. He almost reached for his gun in surprise but stopped himself,] reasoning that she wasn't a] threat and probably just the result of some fun one of the guys had a few years back. [He figured] that [the father probably wouldn't like it if his daughter got shot], and considering how such conflicts [were invariably] resolved among the Dragonfang ]pirates...
"Hey you, who's your daddy?" he asked in what he thought of as a friendly tone.]
{I think the last two parapgraphs flow better this way}
"None of your [business," came] the bitter reply from Chloe, who didn't care for his leering tone or the reminder of Laucilol.
"Why [you...! You'd] better answer me or I'll take you to the captain! The feared Laucilol The Marauder, he's even feared by the Taiidani [Empress!" shot] back the enraged [Jake.
{I don't think the 'enraged Jake' works but I can't think of another way to get that across. It seems like he's over-reacting. Perhaps some action or tone of voice to indicate he's angry - show rather than tell, if you follow what I'm saying}
The] threat was empty of course he had no desire to be face to face with Laucilol ever if he could help it, but he was sure that the threat would work. Laucilol was probably the most feared pirate in the Taiidani Sector. At the moment they [were] heading through AAnn [territory, to reach the] Humanx Commonwealth since the heat was getting a bit to much in Taiidani space.
To his surprise and fear she smiled and cocked her head to the side, exposing a pointed ear. ["Laucilol?" she said,] almost as if she was tasting the [word. She] laughed gently[.] "I think I would like to see him right now."
Jake [felt a cold finger of fear trail down his back. He] knew of only one person with pointed ears and dark skin... Laucilol. Oh $#it. Snapping to attention, while [trying to salute and bow] at the same time, he said[: "Of course mistress, right this way," cursing himself meanwhile] for attempting to threaten Laucilol's daughter. But she seemed amused, so he might survive[... or so he hoped.]
"I should really have paid more attention when that demon was threatening Dad, what was it, forty years [ago?" reminisced] Chloe silently, "Something like that at least, I was next in line for sacrifice. Too bad I'll have to make this quick and won't be able to use all those wonderful suggestions, after all I'm probably surrounded by hostiles loyal to Laucilol." [Chloe's face, which she had kept pleasant so [far, twisted at these thoughts].
{I've rearranged several sentences and inserted entire phrases here to try to emphasise the impact of what Jake's feeling. You might want to consider using something other than " for thoughts - * or _ work quite well.}
Her smile turned vicious, vanished, and reappeared as a vile frown[. T]he most striking thing about her visage now the virulent hate [and promised vengeance in her violent violet eyes. Chloe tried not to think about how much she hated Laucilol, restoring the cheerful and happy mask she had at first. This] could not possibly be the same person. He had died over fifteen years ago in another universe far away[. This] Laucilol had committed no Crimes that she knew [of - she] needed to know more before acting.
Jack was just silently marching ahead of her[,] his footsteps almost painfully loud to her ears. The others she saw [were] much like the [man] in front of her. Most of the corridors [were] bare, and dirty.
"What is your name?" [a]sked Chloe.
"Huh[?]" asked a confused Jack [jolted] from his thoughts of [impending] doom before realizing that she was talking to him[. "It's] Jack. Just Jack [-] I have no last name."
{you seem to use Jack and Jake interchangeably - they are not usually used like this. You might want to pick one and make sure it's used all the way through}
"Talk."
The command was simple direct and completely caught Jack by surprise. "Uhm, about what?"
"Tell me a [story," came] the short and to [Jack's] mind not very helpful reply.
"What kind of story?"
"You [pick. Maybe] something you did, or a legend among the crew, or an exciting battle you [were] in. Whatever."
And Chloe listened, with occasional prompting when he stopped. She learned much of the world she was in. Many people had FTL here, not at all like the last time. Telepaths where appallingly common here too, and magic was know. There where also similarities to other tech-worlds she visited, but all in all this was too different to base anything [off] those assumptions.
Then they stopped. They stood in front of a plain grey door, and Jack was shivering. Chloe could smell his fear. The corridor was empty except for them [-] this part of the ship was much better looking than the rest, and there [were even fewer] people than in the rest of the ship.
"Uhm, Laucilol is behind this door. He'll not be pleased if you interrupt his playtime with the [slaves," explained] Jack.
"I understand. You may go now."
Jack happily obeyed the dismissal. "Disturbing family," thought [Jack. "I] wonder who the mother is. And if she's still alive. Probably not. I wonder why I haven't ever heard of her before?"
***
Chloe waited for Jack to leave before entering. The scene in the large room was what many would have described as a scene from hell, Chloe had seen worse before, and she wouldn't call it [that]. Generous amounts of blood littered the area, and quite a few corpses. The faces, of the dead and the living, if they still had them in a recognizable form, where locked into grimaces of pain. Some people [were] still alive and screamed quite abundantly except for a few attached to the right wall in various painful looking ways. Some of the slaves [were still in cages - unharmed. Future] victims, thought Chloe familiar with the procedure, letting the quarry see what will happen to them.
"What[!? Who] are you?!?! How dare you interrupt my play time?!?!" [snarled] a furious Laucilol looking up from his current 'toy'. He was dressed in an odd form of armor, consisting of a chest plate that didn't cover his lower torso, a pair of bracers, and a pair of shin guards. The armor was colored blood red, and below it he wore a deep blue jumpsuit. The entire outfit was decorated with silver and gold designs giving it a more ceremonial look than functional. Laucilol himself was dark-skinned, somewhat darker than Chloe, piercing blue eyes, his long white hair drawn back into a ponytail, and two pointed ears that revealed his race as something else than human[:] a Drow. He also had a sword hanging at his left hip, and a humongous gun of some sort on the other.
He put down the scalpel he was using to entertain himself with the boy. "A pity that he [didn't] last much longer[. I'll have to move on to the next one... his mother will do fine," thought] Laucilol with a grin of anticipation at the beautiful screams he was going to hear, before pulling himself back to the situation at hand.
"I'm Chloe. How do you do?" [asked] Chloe with her best British accent, then her voice turned hard and threatening[.] "Cease and repent and Cy may still forgive you. Being a slaver is a Crime." You could almost hear the capital on that word.
Chloe was visually examining the boy on the table, from what she knew of humans this one could be barely five. He would not live much longer without help. In each hand, two more knives joined the one already there.
"Heh," [responded Laucilol. "Cocky] aren't you? Well I'll have fun playing with you."
"So be it. May thou experience eternal pain and suffering." Even before Chloe finished her pronouncement six knifes went flying, They were grouped tightly with about 10cm between each blade the pattern was designed to be almost impossible to dodge.
But Laucilol was fast, and illegal cyberware boosted it sufficiently that he was able to jump to the [side, only a single knife grazing him and that lightly.] He had to immediately jump up as two more knives thunked into the place where he was a moment ago. He realized his mistake too late and while he was in the air[, unable] to dodge[,] two knives hit him in his chest and bit deep [-] cutting through armor, flesh, and bone with equal ease.
Laucilol cried out in pain, but he was relatively unharmed, and he finally got his sword out of its scabbard. He immediately tumbled away from his landing place looking at the place where Chloe [had been] a moment ago. She [had] disappeared, [and] Laucilol cautiously approached the place, checking if she's hiding behind one of the corpses. Suddenly he jumped to the right on instinct, a mere moment before high explosive armor piercing bullets ripped the area and his right leg to shreds.
A few rooms away.
"Did you hear those explosions? Should we check on Laucilol?"
"Are you [crazy!? Do] you know what he'll do if it's a false alarm? He's probably just stuffed some explosives in one of those wretches again just to see the reactions of the others. Do you remember what happened when someone interrupted his play session that time?"
"[You're] probably right."
Laucilol frantically turned and faced at the area where the bullets came from, and just in time as Chloe is almost upon him with another one of those knives. Chloe barely dodged the first [swing, dived] between his legs and then tumbled away just before Laucilol's sword passed through the area where her head had been a moment before. Using the brief respite of the missed swing Chloe drew her own sword. This time both combatants [were] a little more wary of the other.
Chloe barely managed to parry Laucilol's swing, and her eyes widened as her own sword [-] which had managed to pierce gundanium without problems and which had proven sharper than a dragon claws [-] was nicked by Laucilol's sword. It was only a small nick to be sure, and a human would not have been able to see it, but she had thought the sword unbreakable. Her hesitation proved to her advantage, as it made Laucilol overconfident thinking that he was up against a novice swordfighter. On his next thrust Laucilol overextended himself, and Chloe grabbed his hand and applied a [twist and pulled]. Suddenly Laucilol was on the other side of Chloe[,] looking up at the ceiling [while] his broken wrist was still grasped firmly in her hand. For the first time in a long time Laucilol knew fear. Chloe just swung her sword in a low arc and slit his throat.
Chloe turned and started walking away thinking Laucilol safely disposed of, but something was worrying her. There it was again, just barely heard over the wails of the prisoners. Laucilol's heartbeat. Chloe threw herself to the side and whirled around as a bolt of energy flew through the mane of hair following her.
"I can't be killed[,] foolish human!"
Chloe [gripped] one of her 'Earth-shaker' revolvers, after having retrieved it from wherever the cloak stored it, and tried to bring it to bear on Laucilol. But she couldn't aim properly with all her concentration on dodging the shots. Time for a distraction.
"I'm not human, look closely."
Laucilol froze, "[No! There] can't be another of my [kind!" h]e thought fearfully as he [finally] noticed her ears and realized too late that Chloe was aiming for him. He dodged a massive 20mm high explosive shell, which tore the area he was standing on apart, doing a fair amount of damage to him, but already it was visibly regenerating. Chloe fell and slid backwards from the recoil of the gun. She rolled to the side, but Laucilol's shot hit next to her and the floor turned into shrapnel. Most of it bounced of her cloak but one piece made a nasty gash on her forehead. Laucilol had somehow found the time to gather up his sword again and charged Chloe, who didn't get her sword back out in time. His powerful slash hit her in her chest and threw her across the room, her cloak prevented the sword from actually cutting Chloe, but it did little to stop it from transferring its kinetic energy.
Chloe however appreciated the distance this gave her, and did a somersault, landed with her feet on the wall, gripped the mighty gun in both hands, and shot. There was a deafening BOOM as the high explosive bullet ripped forth from the barrel in Laucilol's direction. Chloe crouched against the wall, letting her legs absorb the majority of the recoil. Laucilol almost dodged the shot, but this time it wasn't enough to escape the high explosive 20mm round.Before she could fall from the wall, Chloe jumped off in the direction of Laucilol's largest remaining [piece: his] head. Taking no chances, this time, Chloe aimed and fired the last round in the magazine into the head obliterating it completely. Then she sagged onto one knee, holding her side.
"Broken rib," she thought while prodding at where Laucilol had hit her with the [sword. "Only] one. I was lucky, and stupid. I have definitely gotten rusty. First the others, then I'll take care of myself, maybe this will serve as a useful reminder."
When Chloe approached the barely living boy that Laucilol was torturing a woman in one of the cages cried out in fear for her son, which is understandable as Chloe started to gather a ball of green energy in her hands while she mumbled and gestured ancient words and symbols of power. The huge gash on her face that coated half her face in sticky red didn't help either, or the grimace of pain she had on her face.
"Please stop," pleaded the mother of the boy[.] "He's my only remaining child. If you must take a life take mine[.]"
Chloe seemed to completely ignore her, then the ball concentrated into her hands and she laid them on top of the kid. His condition stabilized and he finally fell into a restful slumber. Chloe then [went] around to pick up the knives she threw, cleaning them on whatever [was] handy where they stuck in something. Finally she went around the [chamber] freeing the remaining slaves, applying bandages where necessary and keeping a wary eye on the door.
{You really made a mess of tenses here - I've switched them to past tense. You might want to reconsider saying that she 'went around', particularly twice - maybe say that she 'retreived the knives'}
"Stay here, I'll try to come back for you. You are not safe until this ship has been pacified."
The former slaves [were] still too shocked to respond to all that had been happening, but one elderly man with an odd crest on his head nodded, and said[,] "I'll do as you say. You saved us all, my life is yours."
"Thank you[," a]nswered Chloe while nodding to the man. And with that Chloe headed out to the rest of the ship. She had confirmed that the pirates had committed Crimes, and now their time to face judgement had come.
Segment 2: Slaughterhouse
Chloe peered down the corridor, two guards in light power armor guarding an open door. Probably something important. She took out her assault rifle and concentrated and gathered her power[, casting] the [spell] 'Expeditious Retreat' on herself and 'Silence' between the two guards and moved.
["Something's wrong," thought] one of the guards[.] "Hey Jake do you also feel that something's off?" [he asked.] It took the guard half a second to realize just what felt wrong, he couldn't hear his voice, there was no sound! By that time it was too late [-] Chloe's assault rifle had reached the bubble of silence and the rounds tore the two guards apart in perfect silence. Unfortunately [one] of the [bridge officers] was looking that way when it happened.
Chloe didn't hear the cry of 'intruder' within the bubble of Silence, but the guns pointed at her through the doorway made the point very clear. She dodged most of the shots, and the one hit was dampened by the cloak, but even a dampened blaster shot hurts. Then a loud and painful whine started filling the air along with the repetitive words "Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert, last seen in front of the bridge, shoot to kill."
Chloe had a most unladylike reply to that. The door to the bridge had been closed and presumably locked. Seeing no one around, no scrying, and no cameras Chloe cast Invisibility on herself and started inspecting her now unseen leg.
"So much for the quiet takedown. Ouch." This last was added to her stream of thought when she touched the charred and bruised flesh that used to be her right thigh. It was bleeding, but not too badly. "Those blasts are dangerous, they destroyed my armor in a single shot. Slow rate of fire [though," thought] Chloe, while she reached for bandages to apply to her leg and a healing potion to speed up the recovery so that she could still fight.
"I shouldn't have gone after Laucilol unprepared for what he and his minions can [do," she thought,] heading away from the spot where she had rested. Sitting still was dangerous when the enemy was hunting her. Of course moving presented its own dangers.
***
Suddenly the ship shook and the sirens changed in pitch and now they where blaring something about an AAnn attack. Chloe had no clue who or what the AAnn where, but judging from the expressions of the crew members that passed her invisible form it was not a good thing.
Suddenly a voice rang out aver the clamor of crew members going in seemingly random directions, "Pierson[!] Pierson! You are with me on the secondary bridge, Takumi is at your post on the primary!"
"I thought we had a treaty with the AAnn[," said] Pierson.
"We had[. Y]ou know how the AAnn are."
"Might as well follow them," thought Chloe, "At least I'll get into a bridge."
***
"This will never do," thought Chloe, as she watched the secondary bridge crew running around in panic. She didn't know exactly what an AAnn cruiser and four destroyers where, but from the main screen she was drawing the assumption that they [were] large, blocky, ungraceful and ugly but carried a lot of weapons. The five ships [were] advancing in a square formation with the biggest ship in the middle and one of the smaller ships in each corner. Even as she was watching the battle on the monitor a large group of tuning fork shaped fighters left one of the three pirate ships and headed for the cruiser, releasing a truly impressive amount of what Chloe assumed to be missiles at the largest ship.
{I don't think it's necessary to state that th fighters are Y-Wings here - Chloe doesn't know that and this parapgraph is from her perspective}
The cruiser's point defenses took care of most of the torpedoes but those that got through blew apart weapon emplacements and knocked large gaps in the armor. The [Y-Wings -] now out of torpedoes [-] split their efforts between the damaged cruiser that was slowly falling back and the destroyers which where still gaining on the pirates. The pilots of the Y-Wings where either very good or insane.
As they bobbed and wove towards whatever ship they where targeting, taking potshots whenever their sights lined up with the ship, before leveling out at a distance of less than a meter, shooting at whatever stuck out enough from the ship to come in their sights. Before quite running out of ship to fly over the pilots then resumed their attack run on another ship, keeping between the two ships to discourage enemy fire. It was quite successful except for two things[:] the AAnn didn't seem to care if they hit their own ships too, and [the] pilots frequently crashed into one of the AAnn ships.
As the AAnn kept gaining the lead pirate ship released their best fighters - five new Kaark Attack Bombers and seven X-wings - to assist the remaining Y-Wings. The new fighters initially concentrated on the 'upper left' ship which exploded into a quite impressive fireball, taking an X-Wing and two Kaarks with it.
{I modified this to indicate the X-Wings amd Kaark's are the reinforcements - which isn't clear in the original paragraph. I don't think it's necessary to include the number of Y-wings}
At that point the AAnn ships came within range t use their main guns on the fleeing pirates, and the smallest pirate ship, the one that released the Y-wings, went up in an impressive blue ball of fire that was easily twice the size of the ship as 3 heavy beam cannons focused on it.
The second pirate ship signaled [its] surrender, but the AAnn's didn't care and [it] was heavily damaged as two beam cannons focused on it next, the third [destroyer too] heavily damaged by the remaining [fighters].
The crippled pirate ship tried to at least do something and directed the ship on a collision course with one of the AAnn destroyers, but the AAnn reduced it to flying slag before they finished the maneuver, and then went on to the main pirate ship.
Chloe stood her ground in the secondary bridge, dodging the occasional flying technician as the AAnn fired on the last remaining pirate ship. Red lights where flashing, the normal lights where flickering, sirens blaring, and above it all shouts from the crew.
"Damage report!"
"Shields down! Hull breaches on decks 1 through 4! Sir the primary bridge is... gone."
"Uhm, I think we have a [problem," said] Pierson from the sensor station.
"Yeah I'd say [so," came] the sarcastic reply.
"Uhm, that's not what I meant. Uhm, you see we passed into Humanx space. And well, uh, we seem to have found one of their, uhm, border patrols," stammered Pierson. "Uhm, they are hailing us and the AAnn. They demand our immediate surrender."
"We can't do that! Laucilol would kill us!"
"Laucilol is dead," [advised] Chloe [without lowering her invisibility], "I killed him. Signal your surrender and say you where captured by the bounty hunter Chloe."
"Who said that!?!" [asked] several crew members, but the one who was apparently in command replied, "Never!"
After he was neatly bisected the rest of the bridge crew proved far more responsive to their invisible captor's demands.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
I belive you capitalize after a quotation if it ends with a punctuation mark after which you would normaly capitalize, such as '.' '!' '?' but not ','. (for the beggining of a quotation the rules are a little different.)
Of course I could be wrong since I'm using German gramar rules if I don't know of an english rule that overides it (works remarkably well I must say).
A quick check of some grammar websites indicates that they do use the same rule, of course they are not always right.
> {you seem to use Jack and Jake interchangeably - they are not usually used like this. You might want to pick one and make sure it's used all the way through}
oops, I didn't even notice, thanks.
> A pity that he [didn't] last much longer
|won't| is acctually correct in this case (we were both wrong!) since the boy is no quite dead yet, but that will change in a few minutes if he doesn't get help.
>{You really made a mess of tenses here - I've switched them to past tense.
Thanks, that's a bad habit of mine whenever it gets really exciting I start using present tense, but at all other times I use past tense.
Well that's how a review is supposed to be, thank you very much, most of your suggestions have been used.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
[C] I belive you capitalize after a quotation if it ends with a punctuation mark after which you would normaly capitalize, such as '.' '!' '?' but not ','. (for the beggining of a quotation the rules are a little different.)
Of course I could be wrong since I'm using German gramar rules if I don't know of an english rule that overides it (works remarkably well I must say).
A quick check of some grammar websites indicates that they do use the same rule, of course they are not always right. [/C]
Grammaticly, IIRC,
"Wow. That's cool," he said.
and
"Wow! That's COOL!" he said.
are considered to be the same, and capitalized the same.
"Enough! Let's go!" He turned and stalked out.
on the other hand, is two seperate sentances. So, it depends on whether your other text is part of the same sentance. If it is, no caps. Otherwise, they're different sentances.
I think. I usually just play this kind of thing by ear.
Blessed be.
-n
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
I don't think I can add anything to Nathan's explanation here.
You're right about the 'won't' of course, my mistake.
drakensis
"You cannot possibly imagine that _tiny_ gun will hurt me?"
"Gun? What gun? _This_ is my remote control." *sound of heavy, heavy machinery moving* "_That_ is my gun."
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
Re: Chapter 1 Segment 1[revised (again)] AND segment 2
No score for this post
January 17 2003, 1:18 AM
I'm working up the energy for a detailed walkthrough (and promptly running out again).
Hell, let's get it over with. Here's what I've got done so far - more when I'm settled in at school again.
[C] Chloe had a knife in each hand hidden inside her cloak but ready all the same, each of her senses trying to experience everything all at once. [/C]
That little aside about having the knives hidden should probably be set off by some sort of punctuation - personally, I prefer n-dashes, but that's stylistic, I think.
[C] The cavern was dim, and a human would have had a hard time even seeing the huge dragon behind her. Her sight was unimpeded, showing the rough wall at the edge of this cavern where she also had departed last time, it brought back memories. [/C]
That last phrase would look better as its own sentance; and perhaps "Her sight, however, was..."?
[C] She could hear the huff of the dragon's breath as it chanted the words of power, she could feel the thump of it's heart, she could smell the spellbook he was using even over the remains of his last meal, the smell of mystdale spicewine so thick that she could almost taste it. She could sense the magical power around her building.[/C]
Hmm. That was well done, but you should probably be consistent about the pronoun for Mr. Dragon - it or he, but don't switch.
[C] Then it happened. [/C]
Hmm... No. That phrasing, I think, implies an interruption, a disruption, something going wrong. Entertain a suggestion: Cut that sentance, and begin the next "As the spell peaked, she felt the magic of the..."
[C] She felt the magic of the dragon mage seize her an almost euphoric flow of power filling her. The world disappeared, her senses could not detect anything,[/C]
Misplaced comma.
[C] but the vast magic enveloping her. She prepared herself and went into a combat stance, you never knew where you would appear with this spell. [/C]
Comma splice.
[C] The world returned, but one thing was certain she wasn't in her own world anymore. [/C]
Runon sentance. Choice of splitting it or rephrasing - I'd pick the second, to something like: "The world returned after a moment - a moment that could have been an instant or a year for all she knew in the spell's grip - but it certainly wasn't the one she'd left."
[C] She recognized the steady drone that only came from machines, the sickly sweet smell of oil, and all the other markers of a technological civilization. [C]
The fact that there wasn't any horse-or-equivalent-beast-shit on the street was kind of a tipoff, too.
[/C] She smelled and heard the man before she whirled around to face him, still keeping the knives concealed and trying to appear nonthreatening, but ready to defend herself. [/C]
Yeee... What an awkward way to put it. "...concealed and trying to appear capable yet nonhostile."?
[C] Jake turned the corner and saw a small girl probably around nine years old with purple hair and a chocolate brown skin, wearing an eyewrenchingly black cloak. He almost reached for his gun in surprise but stopped himself before coming even close. [/C]
Comma after 'surprise', and don't the two halves contradict each other? It's clear what's intended, but...
[C] Reasoning that she's not a threat and probably just the result of some fun one of the guys had a few years back. Figuring that her father probably wouldn't like it if he shot his daughter, and considering how such conflicts where resolved among the Dragonfang pirates.... [/C]
These two are in present tense. There wouldn't be anything wrong with that, save that the rest of the story's in -past-. Oh, yes, and they're sentance fragments, all three of them.
Windows Word is an abomination most ways, but it or an equivalent program is really the best and quickest way to proofread your own stuff. I typically write everything out in Notepad, then open a copy in Word and run it through the wringer.
[C] So he asked her in what he thought of as a friendly tone: [/C]
Everything after 'her' sort of feels like an aside to me. Which would be set off by a comma or some such, if it were.
Your call.
[C] "Hey you, who's your daddy?" [/C]
Oh, that has so many levels...
[C] "None of your business." Came the bitter reply from Chloe, who didn't care for his leering tone or the reminder of Laucilol.
"Why you, you better answer me or I'll take you to the captain! The feared Laucilol The Marauder, he's even feared by the Taiidani Empress!" Shot back the enraged Jake. The threat was empty of course he had no desire to be face to face with Laucilol ever if he could help it, but he was sure that the threat would work. Laucilol was probably (no clue if this is true or not, probably the later, this is one of his crew so there are bound to have overinflated opinion of him/themselves) the most feared pirate in the Taiidani Sector. At the moment they where heading through AAnn territory, going all the way to the Humanx Commonwealth since the heat was getting a bit to much in Taiidani space. [/C]
Well, the parens will have to go in the final...
I don't think Lionstone knows -how- to be afraid. Courage and intelligence are probably her only virtues.
In this context, he'd probably use "...feared by the Iron Bitch!"
[C] To his surprise and fear she smiled and cocked her head to the side, exposing a pointed ear. "Laucilol?" She said almost as if she was tasting the word, she laughed gently, "I think I would like to see him right now." [/C]
At first reading, I didn't notice this. At second, it seemed like a mistake.
Now I'm just curious.
Blessed be.
-n
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
(N) [C] To his surprise and fear she smiled and cocked her head to the side, exposing a pointed ear. "Laucilol?" She said almost as if she was tasting the word, she laughed gently, "I think I would like to see him right now." [/C]
At first reading, I didn't notice this. At second, it seemed like a mistake.
Now I'm just curious.(/N)
? About what?
The pointed ear is because she is an elf, but she ussualy keeps her ears hidden in her wild mane of hair. It is mentioned in the second paragraph that she isn't human.
If it is about the tasting the word bit then it's supposed to be imagery, not literal.
The reason she knows Laucilol (as discused vaguely later in the segment) is that she comes from another universe where there was an 'Alternate' of Laucilol. Alternates are what the same person would be with a different upbrining, becuse they lived in a different universe, maybe even had different parents. And there is a reason why Chloe appeared near Laucilol.
As to why she hates Laucilol so much... I will go into a more detailed explanation of that later, although some is given later in the chapter. But he is her father and Chloe has certain unresolved issues with him and an unhealthy amount of anger.
(N)Oh, that has so many levels...
That's why I used it :)
(N) Windows Word is an abomination most ways, but it or an equivalent program is really the best and quickest way to proofread your own stuff. I typically write everything out in Notepad, then open a copy in Word and run it through the wringer. (/N)
I use an outdated version of Wordperfect, much better than word but still not to great (It is the most unstable program I run regularly even though it is a hunder times more stable than Word). Also in many cases I will defer to it's gramar rules rather than the real ones out of simplicity/lazziness.
(N) Yeee... What an awkward way to put it. "...concealed and trying to appear capable yet nonhostile."? (/N)
Apperently it really was akward since you misunderstood it...
(N) The fact that there wasn't any horse-or-equivalent-beast-shit on the street was kind of a tipoff, too.(/N)
Not really, you'd be surprised at how nice a city can look and smell when an overpowered clean spell is used regualrly on it.
(N) I'm working up the energy for a detailed walkthrough (and promptly running out again). (/N)
I know how you feel.
Well thanks for the commentary, I appreciate all of it. I am looking foreward to the rest of it, and chapter 1 is almost done.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.