• 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.

Day in the Life: Escape from the Heavenly State

Wen quickly floated into the pilot's chair, already in his combat suit and strapped himself in. He scrolled through the corvette's health data, revving up the engine and turning on all the electronics.

Inside VR, his body floated next to two vessels, their corvette rapidly closing in on the much larger transport vessel. "This is going to be quite the task." He observed, "We can't just gun down their engines; the whole ship needs to stay largely intact. We need to keep their comms jammed so they can't alert the rest of the system, match their burn, eliminate their crew... all before the ship misses its periodic ping."

He turned to the other princess, "I'll make sure they can't shrug us off while we board, but Lady Koyama, your electronic warfare will have to be on point, or else we're fucked."
 
Koyama had wondered what fresh hell had been unleashed on Wen's virtual space. Zombies, Kashmir goats of war, ancient human weapons. For a short while, all she could do was observe Hoshiko's initial responses with a shrewd eye once magic had been mentioned before finally joining in the havoc. At least that had all been enjoyable.

Now wrapped partially back in the meatspace, the princess had squirmed her way back into the bodysuit a short time after Hoshiko had sounded the alarm. Her shift had been up for a few hours, using the time to rest and compile information on their target.

"Would be a waste to shower right now, I mean, we're going to be fighting a bunch of humans. Save the shower until after, nothing like feeling clean after exterminating a crew!" she sounded... pleased at the prospect once she had floated onto the bridge. Drifting to her station, Koyama strapped herself in and began working at the console.

While her virtual avatar sat cross-legged next to Wen's larger form observing the distance between the two crafts closing.

"Been sampling their signals sporadically and running sims when sleeping. So I can manage the initial attack from here, but once I'm on board I won't be able to move around much since I'll need to keep a physical connection for the follow-up.

How long before their next check-in?"
 
Inside their virtual space, Hoshiko sat in the center of the bridge, yellow alert lights dramatically lit in the space-opera themed set. Never mind that the actual bridge was cramped and lit with the minimal lighting necessary to see.

"Koyama's right. We got maybe a half hour until their next check in, and four after that. We're definitely going to Yellow Alert, so yes, put that stuff on hold and grab your gear," the Princess-Commander replied. "It's all up to the humans how sweaty we gotta get though." The mood was excited and even lighthearted in virtuality, but the bridge in meatspace was eerily silent. Save for the sounds of the others clambering in and locking down into their high-g maneuver seats, little else could be heard. Not even a word. Then, a faint thrum could be just barely felt through the tiny stealth corvette, the reactor powering up at Wen's command. "Easy there Tiger," Hoshiko jokingly replied to him in English. "Take a look at the ship guys," she flicked her fingers, tossing an invisible photo out at their main viewscreen. The tiny picture frame in her hand flew out and grew in size until they could see the Soyuz-made ship in full.

Networked with their corvette, the Daqinren naturally saw the most important details first, the optical silhouette and heat signatures coming in before the cameras identified the painted text on the hull. It was the Cháng Lǜ (常綠), their mark. But these cold metrics aside, they could see that it was indeed an older ship, its exterior painted and repainted again several times to cover micrometeorite impacts. But it even the most novice of the quartet could tell it wasn't accelerating or broadcasting anything unusual.

"Blocking distress comms and getting a hard-connection might be easier than we thought. You guys think it's even noticed us? We've only prepared for worse case stuff," Hoshiko eagerly grinned, licking her lips. The princess was practically a cat before a sleeping mouse.
 
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"Let's still take all the precautions necessary." Wen replied, tapping a few buttons in meatspace. The corvette hummed, graphics on his display showing liquid hydrogen coursing through the entire hull of the vessel to bring its external surface temperature to near-background-radiation levels, the heated hydrogen vented as reaction mass, being used to line up the corvette with the Chang Lv. Not that he needed the display, as he enjoyed a full, 3D view of the upcoming battlefield in virtual space. "Lady Koyama, just give me the signal that their comms are getting jammed, then I'll announce our presence and make a hard burn to get us in close."
 
Jun considered her position carefully.

On one hand, it sounded like Hoshiko and Koyama had this well in hand. Doing some kind of jamming, communications stuff, tactical things... If Jun showed up she'd certainly be able to contribute expert opinions on what rocks were nearby. She wouldn't be much use to the crew. Plus if she was showered she'd be far more presentable when they go invade that Human ship.

On the OTHER hand, there were two princesses here now. If it were just Hoshiko things would be different, but right now Jun had to make sure her own Career didn't get stalled out. More important that being freshly-showered was showing up on time for important things like ship invasions...

Reluctantly, Jun would go for the bodysuit over the luffa and head towards the ship's CIC.
 
"Half an hour?" Koyama murmured in the virtual space while squinting at the picture. Soyuz technology, rather rugged, is built for long life and is easy to replace or repair. She wanted to spin around in her seated position. Even as her physical form went about its task with quiet efficiency. "I can jam up their communications easily enough. You fling enough radio garbage at the receiver and sit back and enjoy the ride. Already matched up the signal. After that got to act quick."

A finger pointed out toward where the communication systems should be situated. "Won't have to brute force it at least." a scrolling text accompanied the screenshot of the ship. She had it down to the frequency, polarization, and signal strength. All with an almost voyeuristic zeal projecting every direction the ship had sent out signals given the timeframe of her random sampling.

"So I can just slip the knife right on in. Or, if you want to go balls to the wall, I can be just like that weird sentient cartoon decanter full of flavored water Americans seem to love. I'll uh... save the latter as the oh shit option. I just hope you're a good pilot, Duìzhǎng. I am delicate, well, what I am doing will be delicate." she had already brought the corvette's E-WAR suite online, punching in just how she wanted to approach the task. Instead of brute-forcing her way in, Koyama had gone for the more subtle option. Using what she had gathered off the ship to begin a 'quieter' jamming instead of merely blasting them with enough garbage to fill the Atlantic.

Her avatar looked over to Hoshiko, then Wen in turn while working, "I voice the same worries as before however. Once I'm on board, I get to a terminal, jack-in, and I'm locking them out of engineering. Venting it, killing them, or someone gets to go play hunt the human in there." the princess twirled a finger in the air. Both in virtual as well as meatspace.

"I can't be everywhere, and I would rather they not start screwing with the magnetic confinement of the reactor thinking they're clever in a whole blaze of glorious nuclear fusion fashion while drinking potato vodka."

"So who gets to guard me while I work my magic?" her gaze lingered on the three. She even waggled her fingers in a suitably witchy fashion.
 
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With distances measured in light-seconds, thirty minutes of time was both short and long all at once. For their ships, they were getting closer and closer to weapon range, but even when that occurred, actual boarding action was a ways away. They had time to plan.

"Considering how blind that human ship is acting, our precautions might be overkill," Hoshiko noted with a smile. It didn't last long however, a frown taking its place as paranoia visibly made a feline ear twitch. Turning her eyes on her traveling companion, she couldn't help but wonder if something was wrong as well. Jun wasn't usually this quiet. Did she have a bad feeling about this? It didn't matter. They would deal with the humans decisively! "I would say Jun would be best guarding you again, royal-sister, but I have a better idea," the Tiger-Princess began, flicking her finger at the display. The image of their boarding tube came to life, a small maintenance section highlighted. "If you hard-connect our ship's network to theirs, it'll be able to hold and maintain any systems you capture. Including their own Wi-Fi transceivers," she maliciously smiled. It would mean Koyama could free-roam so long as she established a 'territory' for herself by capturing the transceivers.

"Do you and Jun want to head off to engineering or the bridge? Wen and I can take the other, while the rest gets vented!"
 
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Koyama gave Hoshiko a side-long glance. She wouldn't trust her with a delicate task like engineering as far as she could throw her. And while that was pretty fucking far. Still wouldn't. "I'll take engineering. Jun can play shoot the humans. And not the reactor. I lock the place down you and Wen the bridge. Between the two they're fucked." from her tone, she found the idea dubious at best. But was rolling with it. A lot could go wrong with her sister's idea. No telling what that human ship was packing in terms of hardware or software. Counter-intrusion. Were there even pirates out this way? Well, har har fucking fiddly dee. The dragon thought with an irritated flick of the tail.

"Besides," with a look toward the Cow-form then, "If we survive I have a number of contacts I can speak to on her behalf. If she's big on rocks there are a lot of mining ventures in need of expertise." There. A little bit of something to sweeten the pot. Incentive to keep her alive.

"I should also mention I'd already begun?" coughing a little at the telltale information floating across Hoshiko's screen now. Her younger sibling had begun a subtle if malicious assault on communications. Even seemed to be trying to worm her way further into the networks.

Her look was rather intent except for the frown tugging at her lips, "Hate to bring up the elephant in the cabin. But would they have picked up the drive plume?"
 
"Pew Pew" Jun said in meatspace as her physical body showed up, allowing her virtual self to disappear.

She had to give some consideration to Hoshiko's strategy. Maybe that is how she was planning to set herself apart from the others? Hoshiko, the overkiller? The name could certainly use some work. If she did come up with something catchy then the meme would stick and her career would be back on track... or at least the higher ups would be taking notice of her.

Hoshikill?

Overkill-Hoshiko?

HO-verkill?

The Bloody Tiger-girl?

......

Jun put some consideration into just hiring a PR expert.
 
Wen shook his head in response to Koyama's question. "I've been keeping our drive plume in our shadow. Unless they know we're coming from this exact direction and pointing all their sensors at us, we're basically just a cold rock. I'm going to wait for the half hour to pass before we start the hard burn, so we have the full four hours to get in close and finish the job."

He instinctively rummaged through his hair in meatspace one more time, then grabbed his helmet and secured it on. "Physical contact is going to be difficult. One good thrust sideways on their end, into our ship, and we're all bloody meat pies. The reward is too good to pass up though. Lady Koyama, your hacking has to be on point; we need everything down. The engines, the thrusters, even the doors, if they try to do some makeshift maneuvers by opening up an airlock and letting air out."
 
"Jun on security detail and Koyama on net running like usual, sounds like a plan," Hoshiko nodded to her dragon-sister. "Though, let's hold off on our jamming since Wen wants to give ourselves the biggest time window possible. Let them give their routine report, then we pounce." A few light-moments away, a television screen turned into static before stopping, the human crew member irate enough to smack the thing for good measure before it snapped back to their Three Kingdoms drama. "It's more hurrying up to wait, but this isn't something to rush on anyways," she shrugged in both 'realms'. As time slowly whittled away like a knife gently carving back wood, their prey came closer and closer and closer. At the range they were at, a LIDAR scan wouldn't have even been necessary to give them all the juicy details.

"Haaaaa... Look at that, we can even see their transceiver pointing towards the local command," Hoshiko mischievously smiled, the final moments ticking by. "And there it goes, turning back to whatever dumb show they were watching - it's time to get started!" Her gaze couldn't help but turning on to Wen's back though. "But are you really scared? A big, slow, massive ship like that somehow changing course fast enough to run us over? Are you scared?" She teased the ox.
 
"Everything's a weapon in space, Lady Hoshiko." Wen knit his eyebrows, not making eye contact as he carefully maneuvered the corvette to line up a fast acceleration burn to touching distance with the cargocraft. "The humans are dumbasses, but they have the mass. Today, we only have a single mission. I advise prudence and full focus." He took a deep breath. "Alright." He looked at all the system metrics on his monitor, their relative positions, velocities, accelerations, double checking everyone's suits and health monitors. "Checklist completed, ready to go. Lady Koyama, I will start the burn on your mark. Expect 3 g acceleration. Everyone bolt for the airlock once we're in position." He thought about having everyone get to the airlock beforehand, but there were no crashcouches down there, and decided the few seconds shaved off was not worth risking them to a tumble through a flip and burn, even with their augmentations.
 
"Just a re-run of the Battle of Hefei." Koyama stated dismissively at Hoshiko's remark about their choice in television shows. "The third one. I think. This is a shoddy production anyway. Actors are terrible and they cut out half of it." her fleshy body sniffed at this. Her virtual avatar then, in a chiding tone waggled a finger at the tiger princess like some old school teacher. "Safe to say I wiggled into their networks if we're picking up the tv shows."

"Wen's right. And that ship's engine can melt us if they ever got it into their heads to think of something so flashy and inventive." she paused, gesturing to the Ox, "Get on with it man! We're pirates for the day. May as well get to the good parts!" And heavens forefend someone gave Hoshiko a damn eyepatch and a cutlass.
 
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Wen murmured under his breath in meat space, then announced in VR. "Interception initiating in wu... si... san... er... yi..."

The engine several floors down rumbled to life, the lights on the bridge darkening as the ship conserved every watt of power to minimize the generation of waste heat. All the excessive power was instead poured into the cooling system, furiously pushing water and liquid hydrogen through the corvette's skin, then sweated off the vapors through the tiny pores in the hull.

Everyone onboard were rotated with their backs towards the floor, feeling their own weight push them downward as the corvette flied towards their prey.
 
Upon realizing that they were about to commit piracy, Jun did a quick image search for famous pirates so she could steal one of her outfits for her virtual self. She would end up in a loose fitting red vest, with blue shorts and a yellow sash, all topped off with a straw hat.

Plus a big black pirate flag.

With crossbones.

Just to set the mood.
 
Hoshiko couldn't help but give a snort of amusement, bound up in the high-g station as she was.

"You'd think they'd put a little bit more effort into depicting the foundation of their civilization," the Tiger Princess remarked. Leaning over her dramatized space-opera station, she took a look at just what Koyama had managed to get a peek at and was less than excited. The humans still needed to activate their Shìchuāng OS and get their ICE updates. "Eh-heh..." Hoshiko's eye twitched. Somehow, this bothered her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "I don't know Wen, even if they did start maneuvering, that thing's turns are measured in kilometers. We can react and accelerate so fast, we'd have to let them smash us." Even so, this feeling of unease had to wait - Wen had the corvette spring into action, its engines thrumming to life as they began their final burn to the freighter. The princes couldn't help but clench her chair as all her senses focused on the ship. Even a human on the bridge should have noticed the huge engine plume lighting up nearby. But they didn't so much as budge, not even a cry for help or increase in thrust - it was maddening! Looking about their virtual bridge, she watched as they all did their best, right up until she saw Jun.

"Heh. Guess they're humans after all," she remarked. The top-heavy cow wasn't taking this seriously one bit. Maybe she had the right idea after all. Donning a cheesy schoolgirl space-pirate outfit, she made their announcement through short-range laser to the humans. "Avast ye! Surrender now, and you won't be shot!" The moment the boarding tube clamped onto the ship, Hoshiko's restraints unlocked as she darted out of her seat. Their movements synchronized and coordinated, the Daqinren all moved like a ballet of ninjas bouncing off of walls as they gunned for the exit.

"No, wait! Not this door! The other one! The other one!" the humans flickered their laser comms back. But the Daqinren weren't going to be slowed down! Hitting the emergency override, the door slid open with a hiss and a scream as an older man began reaching for his face, a spray of bright cherry red fluid glooping over his body and enveloping his face like an amoeba in the zero-g. Before the Imperial 'troops' could make their move into the Republic ship, a snapping click could be heard, and the man burst into flames as the open maintenance panel sparked.

The emergency extinguishers did not go on, and Hoshiko could only be bothered with a perplexed "Huh," in meatspace as the flaming man flailed about in zero-g, the flames erratically, unnaturally spreading from red droplet to red droplet.
 
Jun had spent enough time in space to be comfortable in Zero-G. As the airlock door opened she noticed that the Human infront of them was both unarmed, and on fire. This meant they could safely be ignored on her way to the engineering area. She leaped off the floor at an angle, propelling herself down the corridor like a missile, tucking her legs in to her chest and spinning so that she now had her feet out-front. As she reached the Human she'd let out a powerful kick, sending them both flying down different hallways as Jun shot off towards the engineering area and the Human was sent flying off somewhere else.

She would keep up her momentum, kicking off of the walls, ceilings, and floors as needed, maintaining a slight angle so that each push off would result in her having an opportunity to change direction again in a few moments as she reached another surface.

With her best pirate voice she would shout.

"YAR!"
 
Wen was stuck with the burning man flailing about, flying towards him. He briefly considered looking for an extinguisher to put out the fire, and then prevent it from spreading to the rest of the ship, but decided against it. There were only four of them. They can't afford to look after a human who was going to die to his burns anyways. Thus, unceremoniously, he put the man out of his misery with a shot to the head. The burning corpse was still a problem though. Once Koyama entered the ship Wen kicked the body out towards the corvette, slammed the closest bulkhead in the cargo vessel shut, then remotely commanded the corvette to break contact so the corpse could float harmlessly into space. Once all that was done, he followed Hoshiko up to the bridge, taking great leaps, occasionally balancing himself by maglocking to the floors and walls.

"Seriously? Flammable hydraulic fluid?" Wen asked in VR. He didn't participate in Hoshiko and Jun's antics, instead crossing his arms disapprovingly at the humans in a comfortable collared shirt. "They still make this stuff for space travel? Curious where it's all stored. We should go pump the tanks full of oxygen and watch the fireworks. Later."
 
"Huh," came Koyama's response echoing Hoshiko, via her virtual avatar as she watched the human floating and burning alive. Thankful for her helmet in meatspace. But in this virtual world, she had participated in the pirate antics as well. Briefly wondering if somehow, somewhere, something a divinity or some other being of power (If you even believed in that sort of thing) had been reading her mind about the pirate thing. Weirder shit had happened but this was going on her list. Perhaps not in the top ten but close.

Her outfit consists of leathery material for both its top and bottom. Mostly black with tawny pads on the thighs, knees, and lower leg. A holstered, ancient-looking energy pistol was holstered at a hip. A white skull and crossbones covered the front of her black top. And over it, all was an equally black cloak whose interior was a dull red another skull and cross bone (This one in silver) clasped it together. The dragon princess even wore a black eyepatch over her right eye.

Koyama swished a whip-thin sword more akin to a rapier before her. Let the others be all generic! Even if they were just slightly evolved apes, even she could appreciate some ancient Human media. The now tiger royal had liked this golden oldie of anime. It all looked a little ridiculous perhaps clashed a little with her golden dragon's horns, eyes, and hair. Her tail was even mostly hidden by the cloak.

"This is a Soyuz ship. If it is old chances are it still uses parts a century old. So I wouldn't put it past them to keep stuff like that around." With a swish of the rapier gun thing (because it had a barrel on the end) she pointed.

"Their systems are already infiltrated. So the ship should be able to handle it. Provided it stays in range. Monitoring it as I'm able and providing instruction. So if worse comes to worst I can hard connect via my deck if our lil'pirate ship can't maintain." She hadn't said anything in meatspace as of yet but did brandish her weapon. Raising it in the air, almost like she was fist-pumping.

"C'mon Straw Hat! We have an engineering section to take over." Calling to Jun and with that, Koyama peeled off and made her way toward the rear of the ship. "Word of warning, Occupied areas are going to be vented. May cut down on the need to shoot the humans." Already as she headed toward her destination she had issued commands to the corvette. One of which had been this particular scenario making little hops and using her mag boots to skip along.

"Not gonna be as fun as watching them float in Zero-g on fire. But we can't have what we want all the time." Her real voice chattered inside of her helmet.
 
"Aaaaaah!" A man in a jumpsuit screamed as Jun barreled around the corner, tool box tethered to his belt. "CLOSE THE BLAST DOOR! CLOSE THE BLAST DOOR!" Grabbing it by the lanyard, the goatee bearing man swung it at her like a flail, all the while desperately trying to claw his way away from the buxom space invader!

"Flammable cherry juice has been against regs for over a hundred years!" Hoshiko facepalmed back on the 'bridge' of their virtual ship, her physical body deftly flipping over and leaping off again as she hounded after the bridge with Wen. "But it's cheaper. Like, humans cooking with gutter oil levels of cheap," she noted quickly bringing up a maintenance chart out of morbid curiosity. Screwing up her face like she had smelled something nasty, the tiger princess swiped it away. The door down the cross junction suddenly hissed closed, a beady eyed camera staring at them. Hoshiko quickly shot it out, but that meant only one thing. "Looks like it's a door-game with the bridge crew. Let's split up and give them a nightmare!" she grinned at Wen on the bridge. Her physical body coiled up like a spring and shot down the left hall, leaving the beefy Ox the right. "Hey sis! Money's on the ship wireless hack only working part of the time, while your deck can only hack one end at a time!" Hoshiko grinned at the dragon princess.

At the same time, the man fleeing from Koyama and Jun found the doorway closing on him as well, sealing him in with the two femme fatales. "NO! OPEN THE BLAST DOOR! OPEN THE BLAST DOOR!" he screamed, turning his back on the door and desperately swinging at the two with his improvised weapon.
 
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