• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

Chapter 3: Preparations

Ray of Meep

Ray of Meep

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Mid-December, 2320

Sol System, Asteroid Belt

The Audentes from outside looked like the typical spacefaring cargo ship of the day; a large, rectangular vacuum chamber at the front of the ship, a single off-the-shelf fusion engine at the back with its belt of fuel tanks, and a small crew module squeezed in between, with all the sensor equipment, RCS thrusters, communications pasted along the exterior. Without the engine, the whole ship looked like a boxy, windowless apartment building with a first floor painted and built differently.

It was an ugly ship, but it was his ship, Alex thought to himself as he made sure his helmet was sealed tight before he opened the airlock to the cargo chamber, then floating in. The Audentes was currently coasting towards target, CH-458, on minimal power and zero-gravity, keeping a minimal sensor profile. With current velocities, they were a week out.

CH, Common Heritage. The superstates of mankind claim the designation as a gift for the free spirited who seek out a life of their own, true freedom out in the infinite void, endless possibility. It's complete bullshit, a joke that opportunistic corpo's tell themselves as they laugh all the way to the bank, exploiting resources with no taxes, no accountability. The little guy ends up chasing after scraps in tin boxes made for them from the "benevolence" of the rich philanthropists.

Alex's mind wandered in that direction, resentment producing adrenaline as he came upon the metal container that held the coilgun. It too, was a "benevolent" gift from the philanthropists. He maglocked himself to the hull of the ship, then checked his datapad. Sovanna and Skolos were supposed to help him install this. KB and Marius should be outside modifying the comms, while James and Cindy are back inside preparing the breaching software and the package itself.
 
Living for three decades on a planet with a stable and virtually invariable gravitational force to which the human body is perfectly acclimatized might make a person take gravity for granted. And the thing about taking things for granted is you only really appreciate them when they're gone.

Marius Noble hadn't been conscious on the ride from Luna to Ceres, sedated as the final round of intravenous radiation therapy killed off the last of the cancer cells lingering in his brain (it was Phoenix's decision to only provide the bare minimum required to resuscitate him due to their dwindling confidence in the success of Project 21R). As such, when the hum of the Audentes engines rumbled through the bench and the feeling of weightlessness increased as Ceres station drifted out of view, Marius steepled his fingers, gritted his teeth, and maintained his exterior composure while his internal monologue went something like: "AAAAAAAAAA".

His situation didn't improve much as his stress and nausea built until Alex delegated their assignments. He thanked every god in existence that the suits seemed engineered to be idiot-proof, and excused asking for help with "I haven't worn this model before". These were as far removed from the bulky suits of the Apollo era and pragmatic designs of the Artemis missions as a burlap sack is from couture and surprisingly comfortable, though his was a bit snug around the middle, not by fault of the design. For a moment in the airlock he managed to calm himself down before the door opened, and the panic threatened to overtake him again as KB stepped outside ahead of him to complete their task.

Marius's boots were magnetically locked to the ship's surface, you could only lift one foot while the other was clamped down. He watched the little lights at his ankles flick from red to green as he slowly followed KB, one step at a time, to the comms. He knelt, fumbling for the metal wire frame clipped by a cord to his belt and looking over the tools secured within it. He had no clue what any of this did, and hoped to high heaven the profile Stellar had sent to Alex didn't put him down as an engineer. He couldn't exactly pull that particular act off in front of anyone aboard, particularly the robot.

"You'd think that they'd put this communications stuff on the inside of the ship." Marius tried to distract himself from his drawn-out panic attack by talking. It didn't make things worse but it didn't help, either. "If you need this thing that looks like a vibrator or the weilding-torch-looking doohickey I can...pass them to you. Or if you like...need a hand..." He glanced up, concluding that KB did not, indeed, need more hands. Looking up made things much worse though, as he was confronted with the realization that he was anchored by electromagnets to a small tin can hurtling through the unfeeling void, and to quell the rising urge to throw up in his helmet he lowered his gaze to the tools again.
 
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A lesser machine, one of those halfcocked cyborgs, might have called Marius' uselessness adorable. KB-231 felt no such way. He felt instead pity for this meat bag thrust into a situation he clearly was not ready for. Why had the captain opted to send the meat shield to hold 231's tools? Perhaps to acclimate him to the eternal oblivion that awaited them should they fall in space? To witness the horizon in every direction? This poor meaty individual would be a hinderance in combat, no doubt. But perhaps he could be entertaining in the meanwhile.

KB-231's feet simply magnetized to the side of the ship, walking along the metal like it was nothing. A chuckle escaped the machine, an unnatural noise that was clearly artificial. It was a harsh sound, almost grating but the method of which the machine made the noise confirmed it was, in fact, a chuckle. Speaking now, the machine's voice started as harsh as the chuckle, but over the course of his words his voice became more natural sounding, barely pleasant to listen too. "I'm sure your hands would be suitable for, at best, holding things for me. Answer me this, what training have you had in the application of ships?" The machine was clearly testing him, playing with him, seeing what response the hapless human would return with. As he waited for an answer, he knelt down next to the comm array. The business of modifying the array would be trivial for him, but it would take some time regardless. "And remember, the long the stare at the Void the greater the chance something stares back." The machine held no emotion on it's mask like face, but surely, if it could, it would be maliciously playful.
 
Their surroundings were soundless, Marius realized, as he accidentally knocked the wire frame against the hull with a shaking hand and watched metal silently impact with metal before he scrambled to pull it back by the cord. Nevertheless, when the robotic voice replied through his ear speakers he flinched visibly. KB's voice made his skin crawl--sophisticated beyond any synthesized voice or speech bank Marius had ever heard but unmistakably artificial, unwavering, uninterrupted by pauses for breath.

"Suffice to say I do my best work while on solid ground." Marius replied as a cautious half-answer, watching KB bend down to the comm array, illuminated by the greyish disc of Ceres and the distant, pale light of the sun. He was currently further out than any human of his generation had ever been, surveying a gap of boundless space as inhospitable as the unimaginable expanse of time he'd crossed by sheer luck, from a spaceship, with a robot. Marvelous and terrifying, though the voice in his ear speakers tipped it further towards terrifying. Marius watched a bead of sweat float from his face as he looked up, scanning the mask-like face for an expression and finding none.

"...Wait there's not seriously anything out here, right? I can't tell if you're joking."
 
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James glared through the virtual screens coating his eyes at Cindy, "No you plug the communicator into the third port down. The other one." James' attempts to instruct the engineer in vague placement of the proper inputs in a zero G inviroment were going just as well as one would think, Horribly. "Yes that one. Good." The hackers hair glowed a bit brighter as he closed his eyes and returned to his virtual workspace. He and Cindy had gone over many ways to go about preparing the particular hack that was needed for the job, James spent a good half hour explaining why her original idea of using the pixel bug just wasn't proper for this hack, while it would work in a pinch it would be faster to design a more agressive bug.

Speaking of the bug in questionthe virtual reprsentation in front of him looked rather nasty. While rendering data in a 3d model wasn't strictly required James found it fun to watch as well as easier to understand it, more detail could be aquired through the meta data of each rendering. As Cindy got the right port and plugged the data cable in James' mental image expanded to the sandbox enviroment where he was about to run the lastest version of the bug against his own firewalls as well as the basic security software found everywhere in the Union. "Right plug the flash in." giving the go ahead for Cindy to begin the attack on his fortifications with their new virus.
 
Cindy grumbled, they hated being instructed like they didn't know anything. James said heir code was too 'complicated', 'went slower, when there was better method'and other words they didn't process as their frustration grew. But they gave in after being explained like a toddler and arguing with him.

They pushed the flash in, ignoring his breath against their skin. They also hated being so close to people they could smell their breath.

"There." They snarled, while clumsily trying not to float into other direction. They were glad they didn't choose to wear long braided hair.

The space outside the ship was vast, dark and never-ending, she was fascinated with it. The idea of travelling in space was her dream, and now she was in it, but not in a fun way. Their suit was hard to move in, they were not used to the gravity, they were getting frustrated, they almost got hit by a toolbox, how come they have not had a meltdown yet?
 
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Skolos walked to Alex on the hull, who was waiting for him and Sovanna. Seeing as he had lived with pirates for a large part of his life, the no-grav travel plus the maglock boots were not new to him. He had, however, always hated walking with the boots. It took way to long to lift one foot up and place it down before moving the other.

"Ello" He said to his new captain. He liked Alex. Quiet and relaxed, but Skolos was sure Alex could be a mean fighter when he wanted to. The Aussie then turned his eyes to the magnificent coilgun. From a young age he had a penchant for large guns. This certainly was a large gun. He rubbed his hands together and said, "Alright how do we install this thing?"
 
Sovanna is next to Alex as well. She isn’t skilled at engineering, but is strong and good at following orders, so she is ready to help install the coil gun. She is wearing a pretty standard vac suit, with a small patch she has attached to the left shoulder denoting her rank as Specialist and her squadron.
 
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KB-231 kept the dark stare up for a few seconds more. "It is impossible to ever know for sure. Simply try not to think that some of the stars are looking back." Finally, after an uncomfortable amount of time, the emotionless machine looked towards the work that needed to be done. His voice shifted again, becoming more collected, almost taking a feminine edge. For most, this didn't change the fact that machines shifting voices like some people change socks was still creepy. "In all seriousness, focus on the task and don't look away from the ship. Let the ship be your anchor to this world and put the universe out of your mind." The machine's voice again shifted toward something far more harsh sounding, holding two of his multiple hands out toward Marius. "Hand me the wire cutter and the socket wrench."
 
"Sure..." He inhales, trying to keep his breathing steady though there's enough oxygen in the suit to sustain even an external panic attack. He shivers as KB speaks again, the shifting tone of their voice distinctly unnerving. He looks through the wire frame, thankfully able to pick out the tools in question and removing wire cutter from it's fitting. It leaves his hand as he instinctively goes to toss it, fumbles, catches it again and passes it over more cautiously, before handing over the socket wrench with the delicacy of someone trying to dismantle a bomb.
 
Portia said:
Skolos walked to Alex on the hull, who was waiting for him and Sovanna. Seeing as he had lived with pirates for a large part of his life, the no-grav travel plus the maglock boots were not new to him. He had, however, always hated walking with the boots. It took way to long to lift one foot up and place it down before moving the other.

"Ello" He said to his new captain. He liked Alex. Quiet and relaxed, but Skolos was sure Alex could be a mean fighter when he wanted to. The Aussie then turned his eyes to the magnificent coilgun. From a young age he had a penchant for large guns. This certainly was a large gun. He rubbed his hands together and said, "Alright how do we install this thing?"
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"You two can first help me figure out where we should install this thing." Alex remarked through suit comms, gesturing the Daqinese and the Heaven-Forged over to look at his datapad. On to were two transverse views of the ship, and one single axial view of the ship from the top of the cargo chamber. "The ship is structurally sound enough for a coilgun that we can install it anywhere, but it's not turreted, so which ever orientation we put it in will affect how we start this engagement. For example..." He drew an arrow parallel to the axis of the ship, pointing out from the cargo chamber.
Capture.PNG
"If we mount the gun pointing in this direction, we won't be able to decelerate and fire at the same time."
 
The machine's clawed hands clamped down around the tools, moving them with ease. Seems machinery had developed even better motor skills in however long Marius had been chilling in space. KB-231 began their work, and began explaining it as they did so. Thankfully their voice settled on something slightly feminine, like a shuttle craft flight attendant. "Think of it as a cone. Ordinary communications are broad, wide cones, and thus weaker. They work just fine, but we need something more aggressive. So we're narrowing the cone, making it more dangerous. Ideally that will allow that odd man whose hair was clearly a casualty of a young life decision to invade their systems." Pealing the cover back, the machine began to work on the wires, the circuitry that ran like arteries through the craft.
 
"I see." Marius had his suspicions that this was an explanation dumbed down to kindergarten level, but appreciated nonetheless. He peers over the open panel as KB works, thankful for the distraction as he checks to make sure their comm channel is private. "...And I know, right? He's one part Blade Runner and one part Black Veil Brides. Thinks he's cool, I bet. Dork."
 
The large Australian was glad he had been chosen to help put on the coilgun. Doing mechanical work was not his forte and he had little desire to work with the hulking robot. He decided he was in less danger with Sovanna then KB, and he would rather be bossed around by his actual boss then a bot.

Skolos looked at the diagram on the datapad Alex showed them and scratched his head. "Well, we want to be able to do both of those at the same time. So if we put it further back from where you have it here we should be fine, yeah?"
 
KB-231 let out a noise that sounded like a mechanical chuckle, making use of the private channel. "Yes, as I said it was most likely an old decision they cannot take back." The machine's face turned partially to Marius, two eyes turned to face Marius. He needed only a few of his eyes to work, and the split attention didn't seem to faze him. "I would advise you catch up with the references, though the old references are appreciated in some part of my brain. Get yourself a datapad, and spend some time consuming content. I'll send you some recommendations." He shrugged, which was a weird sight for a robot. "I can't say whether they're good or not, because I am a robot, but at least the information on the screen felt nice in my mind."
 
"I--" He realizes he's been caught and clears his throat. "I used to be a media historian, I possess a broader scope of perspective than the common man. I've had a lot of jobs, as it so happens." Sitting down and staring at the panel of wires as KB works calms his nerves a bit, and the force keeping him locked down to the ship's hull feels a little like gravity.
 
The machine stared at him for a few seconds longer. Whether it caught a lie, a falsehood, or just plain didn't trust Marius, it's face revealed nothing. "Yes. A broader scope than the common man. I'm sure." The machine gave another artificial chuckle, and turned it's full attention to it's work. The work was simple, and before long he'd finished what he set out to do. Switching back to the primary channel, he "radioed" to the boss their success. "Comm array is upgraded Captain, ready for digital assault."
 
Sovanna considers the options for a moment, and then decides on her answer. “We need to mount the gun in a way where we can decelerate and fire at the same time. The best shot we have at completing this mission is through a drop ship execution. The Coilgun should be used as a last resort to ensure that our designated landing area is cleared before we drop, the ship will not be able to withstand a serious engagement. In short, I agree with the Daqin.” She shudders at the notion.
 
TheCountryWarrior said:
The machine stared at him for a few seconds longer. Whether it caught a lie, a falsehood, or just plain didn't trust Marius, it's face revealed nothing. "Yes. A broader scope than the common man. I'm sure." The machine gave another artificial chuckle, and turned it's full attention to it's work. The work was simple, and before long he'd finished what he set out to do. Switching back to the primary channel, he "radioed" to the boss their success. "Comm array is upgraded Captain, ready for digital assault."
Click to expand...

"Thank you KB." Alex replied through the comms. It's been a couple hours, but him, Sovanna, and Skolos managed to push and guide the coilgun out of the cargo chamber and onto a clear section of the hull, strapping it down with magnets and ratchet straps, before permanently welding it in place, aiming the gun at an angle down and away from engine block.

Now outside of the ship, Sovanna and Skolos would find that they were essentially standing sideways on a tall building, not unlike a certain spandex equipped superhero conceived just before the environmental collapse. The nose of the cargo chamber was the roof, the engine block was the foundation. They helped Alex route wires the diameter of their own arms from the coilgun to the nearest exposed electrical panel of the ship. They then secured the electrical work in place with several metal straps.

"Alright, good work folks." Alex stood "up" off the hull, unable to wipe away sweat that was wetting his skin and floating around inside his helmet as small, balled droplets. "Cindy, James, if you're done with creating the package, can you configure the coilgun from the bridge and give it a brief test fire? I sent its physical orientation data to your datapads."
 
James' eyes twinged as his attention was split between the mock fight against his own virus and listening to the person talking to him. This was the twentith itteration of the virus, it still wasn't good enough for his liking even though the basic firewalls were being broken through consistantly. "Cindy can you handle that while I do this?" He squashed the current itteration of the virus by reseting the sandbox and started making alterations to increase the penetration of the code.
 
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