Flares
It was with a wet thud that the strange insect slipped off her bayonet and onto the ground, leaving a coating of green ooze on the unignited plasma lance. It was with a sickening crunch that the spike of metal was reburied in one of the many insects that had crawled over the makeshift wall, the spike easily shattering the exoskeleton and stirring the mass of dark green that constituted the central nervous system.
It was with a scream of tangible fury that Kertilsvenja* Matsuki turned to face a third assailant. There would be no retreat, no turning from this duty. Behind her was the last delivery of shuttles fuel, every ounce of it would be necessary to fuel the basecamp fusion generator.
Without thought, wooden fiber stock met bug skull with a resounding CRACK that sent the creature careening off to one side and slamming into the dust, raising a small cloud. Before it could even recover from the shock and disorientation, she screamed aloud and drove her bayonet through it, once, twice, thrice- her heart skipped a beat as the weapon was caught in the creature on the third thrust, her eyes raised just enough to sight the next bug coming straight for her.
The creature screeched as she tugged on the rifle, trying to get it up and away, but the tail end of the sound was drowned out by a screech that made her instinctively duck her head. The black-armored figure dissolved in a hail of fire, reduced to so much paste smeared across the stone under the force of the rounds. The intense automatic fire from the Skutilsvenja’s** automatic dissolving the bug with sustained accurate fire.
Matsuki stepped back from the third quadrupedal insect as it bled out on the rubble and dove her hand into the worryingly light ammo pouch. Quickly she retrieved a linked set of five rounds, her sweat-slicked fingers slamming them into the thankfully rugged side gate of her rifle, the linkages of the bullets disengaging as they were fed into the circular magazine. In quick order she disengaged the lock on the barrel and shouldered the battle rifle, aligning the holographic free floating sight, and sending a round ripping through a line of the butt ugly bug fucks.
The barrel recoiled with each shot as Matsuki quickly worked her way through the five shots with disciplined brevity. In a well trained fluid motion, she re-engaged the lock on the barrel and charged back to the barricade, shoving the sharp spike bayonet into a bug that had half worked its way through the improvised rocky barricade.
Hearing a sharp screech from above, Matsuki quickly stepped to the side. She winced as one of the bugs was splattered all over the canyon. The epicenter of the gore laid less than a meter from her position. Its wings oozed green, riddled with holes from the Skutilsvenja’s automatic. It was a small comfort that the bugs had a limited number of fliers.
Matsuki’s wandering paranoia was transfixed as a hail of fire crossed over the top of the canyon. The familiar high pitched scream of wing jets rang down the canyon, giving the bugs some pause, as it should. The hail of bullets was followed with an agile form, diving down into the canyon.
Valkyrja, the familiar and warm word wormed its way into Matsuki’s heart. The airborne warrior’s graceful dive burning alight with soft orange flames as superheated gas gave the dive an upward curve, bringing her up along the rim halfway along the canyon the shuttle had crashed into. The Valkyrja’s feet were a flurry of movement as she used the momentum to bring her over the half-buried shuttle, rising once more before allowing the wings to once again burn in a soft drop ending in a roll.
Except for the roll at the end, the Valkyrja’s weapon did not rest in this acrobatic performance. The light automatic’s barrel shimmering in the already hot and dry badlands they had crashed in. The new green paint smeared all over the barricade stood as a testament to the moving accuracy the valkyrja’s were esteemed for.
“Kertilsvenja, catch!” By instinct, Matsuki snatched the familiar cylinder of metal out of the air. Quickly turning it to find the catch, she jammed the slimmer half of the tiered cylinder into the barrel of her rifle and snapped it into place.
Matsuki fell to her knees and slammed the butt of her rifle on the hard rock of the canyon floor. She ran her thumb along the instructions quickly confirming her memory of the manual of arms, while doing her best to ignore the thin streak of nervous sweat she was leaving in her digit’s wake. Studying the canyon walls, she adjusted her rifle for the optimal air time and visibility, and With a soft pull of the trigger, the gauss coils of the rifle slammed the integral pin into the primer on the grenade. The rifle erupted in her hands, violently expelling the rod into the sky above the canyon. Vibrant intense light filled the air as the flare activated, small jets sustaining its hang over the canyon as multiple spectrums were blasted with energy.
Matsuki forced herself back to her feet. Her hands were still shaking from the force of the flare. Quickly slapping the release of the barrel, allowing it to again jump forward and free, the movement ejecting the spent casing that housed the grenade’s propellant.
Before she could even fish out the last few rounds in her ammo pouch the chasm erupted in a spray of green, a teeth-rattling hail of fire drowning the valley as automatic 12.7’s churned the mass of bugs on the other side of the barricade.
Matsuki flinched as she felt the armoured hand of her superior officer fall upon her shoulder. Without a second thought she went back to her knees, bowing her head before the armoured figure.
“Hail, dame Bayarmaa” she answered, addressing her mentor directly.
“We’ll break you of that yet Matsuki.” Matsuki felt a shock rock her system. Confusion bubbling up into her mind as she tried to parse the strangely informal address her mentor had given her.
Before she could think anything else, Matsuki’s system was rocked as an armored knee drove itself into the pit of her stomach. The air was driven from her body, and she was left leaning upon Bayarmaa’s other leg, struggling to recover her breath. She looked up, unable to hide the betrayal she was feeling.
“Do you feel it? The air that is saturating your lungs? The aether of life filling you? That air doesn’t touch the lungs of a warrior, of any paltry spanner jockey. This is the first breathe of a new life. There is no turning back. There is no retreat past this step.” Her mentor stepped past her, a sudden sharp pain in her hindquarters forced her lungs to kick back into action. “Welcome to the Jomsvikings.” Matsuki’s head swam as her mentor let her fall to the ground.
“And you’re sure they’re alive,” Twilight asked softly, “that they’re here?” Twilight’s eyes scanned the logs Aurora had presented her, the strange creature she had made friends with helpfully projecting legible Equestrian over top of the illegible script. Twilight’s eyes glanced back up to the massive glass tank, not for the first time. Confusion still swimming in her head as she tried to wrap her mind around this new friend of hers.
The eyeless… dolphin? Fish? Twilight still hadn’t decided how best to describe it. Aurora had assured Twilight that the aquatic creature was indeed her physical form.
“Your… magic isn’t as dense outside of your atmosphere. Enough to keep me from FTL’ing, but I can scan for the radiation of another ship or a shuttle’s exhaust, and I’ve yet to find anything. The steam goes in, not out, and it’s not old, the newest is just a week or so old.” The figure on the screen glanced at the tank, not for the first time, its mouth twitching minutely.
“I ask again, would you mind if we moved to the observation deck. I can better give a report on what I know with the holoprojectors in there.” Twilight frowned at the very equestrian gesture. As eager as she was to continue pouring over the advanced technology used in its report, it would be rude for her to continue perturbing her host.
“Lead the way.” She answered, trying her best to not show she’d seen Aurora’s discomfort. She grabbed the thin glass squares by their metal rim, marvelling at how the ‘programmable’ papers were shockingly light.
Through the open doorway she could see the guiding lights. She couldn’t help but tarry for a moment, giving the form in the tank another glance. She tried for just one second to imagine how it would have been for Aurora if the ship hadn’t come back on; blind, deaf, and numb to the world, but for the wires laced throughout the fish’s body. The mechanical systems kicking on to sustain the prison. Whatever these humans were, they weren’t perfect. This miracle of technology she inhabited these past couple of hours was at a cost.
“So how are you going to find them if you can’t scan the planet?” Twilight asked softly as she rounded the corner. She jolted a bit as Aurora’s grinning face appeared on the electronic paper.
“How do Equestrians find things when their scanners fail? Boots on the ground miss Twilight. I intend to scour your planet. It doesn’t matter how long, nor how far I have to go, I will touch every corner of your world to find them.” Twilight paused a smidgen at the firmness of the words. It wasn’t too different from Applejack. When Aurora put her hoof down she seemed to mean it.
“If we can secure these papers against the shrinking that overtakes you on descent into Equiss’s Atmosphere then it shouldn’t be too hard for me to secure help from Celestia and Luna. Luna will be harder, but… doable.” Twilight gave Aurora an apologetic shrug.
Matsuki grimaced as someone continued to blast on the electric harp. Another shot of that damnable ale was shoved into her hands. Without a second thought she downed it. All around her she could see eyes filled with a new respect. Glancing from her eyes to the long-stemmed rose she wore as a crown.
She was a Jomsviking now. The Skipstjóri*** had confirmed her ennoblement upon arrival. It was, in its own way, disappointing. The world wasn’t brighter, clearer, there was no fount of strength she had been gifted with. The only thing that seemed more certain was her death. She had seen the fatality rates of the Jomsvikings, been forced to study the names of the dead before they would even consider accepting her among their ranks. The fate of a Jomsviking was death, there was no escaping. Sooner or later she would be just as dead as the filthy scum she had cleaned off her bayonet.
Would she die better than they had? Would she break? Would she make a pitiable effort before her end? She had served a good seven years in the military, she’d made effort for this post. She’d earned her handful of medals in that time.
But that was the military, these were the jomsvikings. Where before she had been expected to fight and serve with honour and bravery, the Jomsvikings demanded insanity. She would have to fight harder, faster, smarter, such was the nature of service to the Empress of humanity. The pillar upon which democracy could rest and trust.
Matsuki was shaken from her thought as she was offered the operational side of a blunt, the half smoked marijúana cigar burning softly in the night air.
Without a second though she accepted a lungful, her eyes resting on the woman who had offered it to her. Bayarmaa’s eyes glowed softly in the air, reflecting the embers drifting off the blunt. It was an open invitation, an offer of devotion, and in those eyes Matsuki saw her future. A Jomsviking didn’t die just for the democracy they were sworn to, not just the Empress humanity loved, but also for each other. It was a promise to ensure their last moments were soft no matter how brutal the means of their demise. She’d been told all of this, but in Bayarmaa’s eyes she could see the honesty of those words.
Though, with the look Matsuki saw in those eyes, she got the idea that Bayarmaa didn’t want to wait for death to offer that embrace.
Such was the life of a Jomsviking.
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First! :D
Um, it looks like you failed to post a chapter or something? Twilight refers to a new friend in a tank, but no such scene happened last chapter.
8473278
Aurora is the thing in the tank
8473304
I gathered that from context, but we never actually saw them introduced. The previous chapter ended with Twilight insisting on meeting Aurora in person. And in her first scene in this chapter, she's looking at logs in front of the tank. It really reads like there's a chunk missing.
8473304
When did aurora explain that she is a dolphin-fish thing? Was it offscreen or last chapter?
8473363
offscreen
8473361
hmm, alright, ill update you when/if I come back and add that
8473363
It was part of her internal monologue several chapters back.
8473386
I feel this really should be a scene that happens where we can see it. It would be one thing if this were a crossover with some other established source of fiction (from which we already know exactly what certain characters, technologies, and societies look and act like), but you're working from scratch here. I had no idea whatsoever that she had a physical form. I was certain she was going to take Twilight to the central computer core and go "This is me. Hello. Beep Boop.". If you're going to drop a bombshell like that on us, well, I know the saying is "show, don't tell" but as it is you barely gave us either.
Also, that's a lot of asterisks. And I know you're building this whole "Alternate earth timeline where Scandanavia is the root of all modern society", and I do enjoy the world you've built, but I still can't help but be reminded of this famous (if rather harshly phrased) observation:
imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fiction_rule_of_thumb.png
Aurora's physical form kinda reminds me a little of either a Dune Guild Navigator, or maybe Jones the Dolphin of Funland. And in function, not a little of Helva, the Ship Who Sang.
8473496
Didn't make up a single word. Every last one of those is real.
8473696
helva?
8473751
Hello there Vik!
I totally didn't expect Aurora to be that. Interesting!
Auroras form is aquatic, but is she Picean, Cetacean, or the result of a long line of research from a lonely scientist who wanted to be able to have an intelligent dinner conversation?
The Shuttle of Marines landed in the non magical area, but is the volume of the Badlands large enough for Auroras full form?
Everyone always tries to nerf tech because otherwise once you move past chemical based stuff and into Any form of nuclear, well, cold fusion is thousands of times the energy with cheap available material, and fusion is a thousand times more but its miniturising it enough.
A hand held infantry rifle with one bullets worth of antimatter for power can fire billions of plasma rounds, or destroy a medium fortress. Per gun. Properly advanced nuclear tech is right into hard magic classes.
Have any of the Marines been able to scout beyond th demarked edge of the Badlands, and so suffered magical effects?
8473972
the later.
incorrect assumptions made.
They have fusion power, we have fusion power, they use bullets, we use bullets.
Look at previous response.
Incorrect assumptions made. There's more going on to the shrinkage then just "magic" it's a specific magic in a specific situation that cast the spell that shrinks Aurora.
8474049
done!
ehr... a fusion generator doesn't exactly run on fuel, and especially it doesn't consume MUCH fuel going...
hmm if it's an insect it does not have a skull...
8473742
Well the fact is that they are completely out there in a language that is known by a handful of people...
It could be Sindarin[one of the elven languages invented by Tolkien] on a practical level. [and probably there are MORE fluent speaker of Sindarin ^^;;;]
DAMN! I've got current!...
Now the wait starts...
8474303
...huh? there's over 5 million worldwide speakers of Norwegian (the source of the ranks), the names come from the Hird of the Norwegian king, before the adoption of ranks from more southerly lands (knight, and so forth). When I use NSR words in this setting I have to do a LOT of research, because I'm not just google translating it to Icelandic, I have to actively hunt down words that aren't from latin (or that are from old norse, beyond that doesn't matter) first before I use words that came from them adoption words from the christian realms.
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Sorry to pester y'all, but I was kinda hoping to gauge y'all's reaction specifically to the human scenes. What did you think about the combat? about the references to the human culture?
8474300
Clearly changelings. Unknown if they have bones or not.
The beggining... someone watched waaay too much Starship Troopers...
8474945
For my part I'm loving all the little cultural details that crop up.
Fish? Isn't Aurora a dolphin? This chapter aside, I vaugely recall you said as such in a comment on one of the earlier chapters.
I dunno, it's just... when I think of a dolphin, the word fish does not come to mind.
Dolphins are majestic, intelligent, and graceful creatures. Fish are... fish? They swim around and wait to be put on the dinner table.
Fish are the very antithesis to the majestic, intelligent, and graceful dolphin.
8474955
It COULD take allot of fuel to start though.
8474928
Yeah I know, What I'm meaning is that at the level of your public you could have done an almost equivalent work using a totally fictional language like Sindarin, that has a comparable amount of people speaking it worldwide[Ok not as a first language]. It is an obscure [though live] language known to a minority of the people reading the text, and almost everyone has to rely on the notes to understand what is the meaning. It matter little that it is not invented, functionally is almost equivalent. Not that I'm saying that the research you put into it is a bad thing... It's nice.
8474945
Hmm It is a bit sudden, you get an heavy moment of WTF? Especially after the end of the previous chapter where you are expecting to have the introduction of Twilight to Aurora real body. That is another issue, having the meeting happen off screen is a bit meh...
8473496
Shakespeare would like to have a made-up word with you. Or several dozens.
8480446
b-but those aren't made-up words *glances at mounds of research and whimpers*
8480568
*hastily shoves pages of notes on a made-up Equestrian language under the bed*
I never said that was a problem, even if they were!
8480568
Aw... now you've got me feeling guilty.
I've been there. Spending ages searching through backwater resources just to be accurate on some small detail.
Alright, I'll concede the point and chalk it up to a lack of cultural understanding on my part. I blindly interpreted detailed etymological research as bizarre fantasy wordsmithing, and for that you have my apology.
You and your words have my blessing (for whatever pittance such a thing is worth).
8474945 I'm perfectly fine with them. I've liked 'brain plumbed into a starship' stuff since Anne McCaffrey, although I had gotten the impression Aurora was an actual AI until the dolphin reveal, given her extreme adherence to regulation and paperwork even in the face of a severe shift in her universe, and her apparent lack of a sense of self as divorced from the ship.
The human society parts are OK, too - it's nice to read about something which, even if mostly in flashback, isn't a clone of 21st-century America in some way. I'll admit I'm no expert on Norse/Scandanavian history, SATW aside, so I'm far less likely to pick out anything jarring, and I'm kind of treating it as a general fictional creation anyway, so it's entirely possible it might be a mix-and-match arrangement.
Geez, whenever I think I finally figured those humans out, you throw me another curveball. Okay, they are massivley influenced by Viking culture obviously, with all that Jormsviking stuff, the nordic sounding ranks but then there are things like that Matsuki woman (eastern name if I am not mistaken) or the five round rifles that come around.
Five round rifles in a space faring warriror culture? Unless these things fire antimatter rounds, those guns are a massive stumbling block for me unless you must survive rookie ranks with shitty gear and once you get promoted, you get better stuff (like the full auto gun the knight used, sorry for not using the nordic word).
You tease us with a looot of stuff I hunger to have it explained, for example that Valkyr-something. You mentioned wings. Literal wings? Jump packs shaped like wings? Some sort of bio-cyber whatsit? Sure, you mention some gas but that could be five other things for all we know. Come one, throw us a few more bones please! You go into excruating detail with how Matsuki´s rifle works but not a single more sentence about that awesome sounding shock trooper? Shame, really.
The thing with that Baya (shortening this, no disrespect) knocking Matsuki out on a fucking battlefield, as some sort of "welcome to the club"? Ya, I admit, Viking-ish but still sits wrong with me. Unless they scoured the surrounding land clear of live, that is one risky thing. Should a sudden attack occur, who would take care of the incapacitated Matsuki? Or would it be a "If that hinders her from fighting, she might as well just die" mentality?
While we are at that, that thing with the aftermath, when Matsuki realises that even if she is now a elite soldier, the world around her stays the same, if not, only gets harder for her cause she has to live up to even greater standards now. I quite like that. Really makes me like that Matsuki woman. I hope you just don´t kill her off off-screen because reasons.
The blunt I can also see as something, a way to unwind but the whole "My mentor wants to screw me, not before I die but right now" thing? Ya, that is not a curveball, that is a atillery shell. The hell?!? So are all the Jomrsvikings like those... argh, I forgot the name but there was a pretty elite unit in the Roman armies who also had sexual realtions amongst each other.
You mix so many god damn cultures and whatnot that it is so damn hard to get used to it, just as another thing comes around the corner with a baseball bat at the ready. By no means a bad idea, your concept works rather well (better than I propably could make things work) but could you try to give some more broader details instead of one super microscopic analysis and maybe give us some more time to digest the stuff you dish out?
Wow, wall of words, sorry.
Ah and to answer your question about the human scenes, overall they do work but see my points above.
8481167
are you in the discord group? If you'd like It's easier to go into detail there.
8481167
the rifle can fit 12 rounds, she just loaded 5.
8483204
Ah, okay that is slightly better. She was just out of ammo then, makes sense now.^^
Nah, not in any discord group at all. Not gonna join either but thanks for the offer to explain stuff, I think I just contend with what you give us here then.
so was thinking about this story while at work and realized its entirly possible Sombra is alive. Dancer says she killed him because of her experiance with the wepaons she used under normal circumstances.
however she hasnt ever encunter magic. not to mention Sombra was in the form of a living shadow or dark cloud (Whichever you want to call it) its entirly possible her weapons only forced hi to retreat due to having no clue what the hell just hit him or scatter him a bit but he can reform. she most ikely shredded his zombies but Sombra didnt have a physical form at the time and who knows what the magic of Equus or the strang FTL reading did as her shots passed in atmosphere.
Well this is an interesting take on human history and AI.
Definitely a fav, and looking forward to more.
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Hey, dunno if any of you would be interested, but I have a discord server! Ponies, Sci-fi, and starting to be medieval fantasy are discussed on there. There's cool stuff like 3d models of starships from the setting, flag art, fun stuff. Everyone there right now is pleasant and friendly. I implore you, give it a try! Pleeeeeeeease!
Also, as far as next chapter goes, school has been slowing things down, but I've got it around 1/4th done. I intend to do the scene where Twilight first meets Aurora, and then wrap up the time on the spaceship. It's time to head out into that world.
8580305
are we talking middleschool/highschool?
if so, great quality on the story!
Updates soon?
8473751
Refrence to the book the ship who sang.
No updates makes me sad. 💧
Nice story.
Any chance for an update? Or is this permanent hiatus?
9337590
Your profile picture says it's more than that
I hope this someday undies. It was great.
Huh, so they did survive. Mostly. We assumed they had attempted escape after whatever anomaly occurred, and extrapolated that a controlled complete abandonment would have had a very low survivability index unless they happened to actually be within reasonable range of habitation.
In any case, why should she need to scour the planet on the whole? Now that she's determined a less-than-a-week old presence, it would give a statistically reduced area of search. Given time and some fun maths to reverse the approximated particle dispersion of their passage should at minimum decrease the area to a large country...
It's disappointing we didn't see Twilight's reaction to Aurora's physical form.
10117826
I would agree with you