Post by Sanngrior on Feb 2, 2016 7:58:03 GMT
The pod came crashing through the atmosphere, carving a brilliant flare of orange through the night sky. The jet black machine was able to hide its heat signature well; its occupant could keep her power level suppressed to absolutely nothing. Electronically, the machine was all but impossible to find… but visually? There was only so much that could be done to hide the tell-tale glow of atmospheric re-entry.
The impact with the planet shook the pod hard, and there was a gentle hiss as the door slid open. The night sky above was full of stars; a configuration that seemed almost to entrance the figure as her pale fingers gripped the edge of the pod, and she rose out of it to look up into the alien sky. Kabocha.
It had been far too long.
She could feel some living beings converging on her location. Strong. Well. Stronger than most. She would have to move quickly.
When the patrol arrived, the six members of the Saiyan Elite found… nothing. Their scanners picked up no sign of life from the pod or the surrounding area. They weren’t going to take any chances, though; the war against the rebels in this system was growing increasingly brutal, even if the pod had just contained supplies, they needed to know where it had come from and where it was going.
“Looks like a stealth design.” One of the younger troopers said – a local girl, eager to prove her worth and a bit of a tech head in the Captain’s eyes. “Look at the heat sinks. If we hadn’t confirmed it visually we’d never have known it was here.”
“Good work.” The Captain said, begrudgingly. “Spread out and try to find any tracks. Someone has obviously beaten us to the punch here.”
And from the shadows, Sanngrior watched, her tongue slipping out to moisten her lips.
They were a well-trained group. A little green, perhaps, but when waging a war against an embittered guerrilla force, one either learned quickly or died. They moved in pairs, scouters scanning on wide for any sign of life. They didn’t take any chances, either; when a group on the outer perimeter found a small, fuzzy creature scurrying amongst the undergrowth, it met a violent end in a flurry of ki-powered blasts.
And then, as one, their scouters flared to life. The sudden flare of power was so unexpected, the group barely had time to start moving in the direction of the surge before it passed through them in a flurry of white and a gust of air.
“What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know! I couldn’t even see it! Where is it on the scanners?”
“Captain? Captain?”
“Where the hell is the Captain?!”
"He's not here."
Pukinpa City had changed so much since the last time she had been there. The City had a brutal look to it, the architecture pounded over and over again by vicious orbital bombardments. But, there were still the familiar hallmarks. The great statue at the centre of the City, commemorating the Pukinpa dynasty. The web of cracked and broken streets that spread from it, and how the further one got from the well-defended centre of the City, the darker and more miserable the place seemed, the walls hemming in the residents, pinning them with concrete and bare brushed metal.
Her feet knew the way, and she stepped down into the basement-level bar, past a bouncer who knew better than to even pretend to look at her for too long, let alone ask for ID. Inside, the room was a heated hell of sweat and stale alcohol. Sanngrior was curious to note that most of the people in here drinking were not locals, and none of them were saiyans. This was a bar for the pirates, the few remaining lawbreakers who clung on to Kabocha out of some misguided sense of loyalty or desperation. This was not a bar for anyone with sympathy to the Empire.
The bartender – a hulking beast with six spindly limbs attached to a hulking great torso, mostly using them to polish glasses at the moment, looked up from his work and noted the figure as she stepped through into the room.
“He’s out the back.”
Sanngrior favoured the bartender with a subtle nod of her head, and let her footsteps take her out of the public area and to the private place where she saw her old … friend.
“Jarrah.”
He was a tall man, and time had not been kind. His fine green mane was, Sanngrior was disappointed to notice, starting to grey at the temples with the encroaching of age – that most terrible and implacable of opponents. He was still a powerfully-built bear of a man, a seven-foot brute who towered above the slender figure who stepped into his office. Before, she had only ever seen him relaxed, in clothes that were expensive and spoke to the high standard of wealth that he considered so important to project as one of Kabocha’s more successful criminals.
Now, he was wearing expensive and very form-fitting combat armour that looked like it could absorb a goodly sized impact all on its own. Such things rarely helped in her experience, but it spoke to his level of nerves. His head snapped up when Sanngrior entered, and he rose from his seat to offer the woman his hand. She grasped it tightly, and shook his hand until he winced.
“Sanngrior. I’m glad you could come.”
His eyes drifted to the leather satchel she held in her free hand, and one eyebrow raised quizzically, but he didn’t say anything about it. If there was one thing he had learned about this one, it was that it was usually better to ask as few questions as possible – the answers were usually not pleasant.
The shadowed figure sat opposite the desk, and set the bag down next to her with a heavy thump. Her hands folded into her lap.
“I do not hold grudges, Jarrah.”
He sat back down, and tried not to look directly at the figure – there was just something about Sanngrior which set him on edge. He’d never liked her, but when things got desperate, it was necessary to look a little outside one’s comfort zone for solutions.
“I’m not sure I believe that, but I’m glad to hear you say it. You have to understand, last time you were here, you were drawing too much attention – you can’t make that sort of noise without someone eventually taking an interest.”
The young woman was silent. Her hooded features regarded him without a single hint of forgiveness, or remorse. It was like trying to talk to a statue – except statues didn’t tend to look quite so unnerving.
“Anyway. You’re here now and not a moment too soon. As I said, things have gotten difficult for us recently. The Saiyan Solar Empire has been cracking down hard, the Arcosian loyalists keep strafing the city, nowhere is safe and there are few places left for us to do business. We need to start pushing back against both powers.”
Sanngrior shrugged her shoulders lightly, “I’ve never killed an arcosian before.” She said, “I’ve often wondered if it is as difficult as they say.”
Jerrah leaned back in his chair, netting his hands behind his head. “There aren’t many arcosians here. Mostly, you’re going to be killing saiyans and Kabochan loyalists, I expect.”
“Oh.”
She seemed to think about it for a moment, and then nodded her head. “I’ve killed plenty of them in the past.”
“Yes, well, there’ll be more to this than just killing.”
Again, the silence grew between them, until at last Sanngrior relented – raising her hand up to wave vaguely in his direction. “Elaborate.”
Jerrah narrowed his eyes at the young woman, and reached into a cunningly-concealed pocket in his armour. He withdrew a cigar, which he chomped down on, lighting it up with a flare from his fingertips and taking a deep lungful of the thick, pungent smoke.
“If you just start killing them, that’s not going to achieve our goal. Sooner or later, they’ll just send enough forces to drive you out or kill you.”
Sanngrior showed absolutely no sign of acknowledging this as a fact.
“What we need to do, is band together. Get enough people on side to take the fight to them, make it not worth their time any more to try and hang on here. You know how you win a war?”
Again, Sanngrior remained silent. The silence seemed almost to swallow the man’s words, but he didn’t care; he kept just trying to fill that void, at any rate.
“You win it by removing the reason for them to fight. It’s difficult with saiyans, because they mostly fight just to prove they can, but it isn’t impossible. We make it enough of a pain in their rear, and they’ll run off to focus on another part of the galaxy… and the arcosians? They’re in such disarray after that bitch died they’re almost out of the game already.”
Sanngrior grunted faintly, and shrugged her shoulders. “So you want me to kill people, but the right people, and you want me to work as part of a team.”
Jerrah stood up, and offered his hand to the woman, beaming from ear to ear. The big kabochan looked incredibly pleased with himself. “See? I knew you weren’t just a brute, Sann! You’ve got the right idea. You’re tough enough to be our symbol, and with you to rally around, the pirates of Kabocha will rise up and throw off the shackles of oppression!”
Sanngrior rose as well, but she merely stared at the offered hand until it was hesitantly retracted once more.
“I have three conditions.”
Hesitantly, Jerrah nodded his head. “Okay, well, what are they?”
Her hand raised, one finger pointing towards the ceiling.
“First. If I am to rally pirates, I will need a ship. You will obtain one of suitable quality.”
“Not a problem.”
The second finger raised up.
“Secondly. I am not going to wear any ridiculous hats. If you attempt to make me wear one, I will leave, and I will take my new ship with me.”
The large kabochan seemed to relax some, smiling again as though she were sharing some joke with him.
“Wouldn’t even cross my mind. What’s the last condition?”
Her third finger raised, and then she pointed them towards the large man.
“If you ever call me Sann again, I will kill you. My name. Is Sanngrior.”
That smile faded just as quickly as it had come back, and he held up both of his hands. “O-Okay, sure, Sanngrior, that, seems fair. I’ll keep it in mind.”
With that, Sanngrior stood and turned her back on him, stalking out of the office. She still had a great deal of work to do to make herself comfortable here, after all. Jerrah was not upset to see the back of her. Although she was the best candidate he could think of – mostly because the idea of someone capable of intimidating that was genuinely horrifying.
It wasn’t until she was long gone that he realized there was a bag still left in his office. The heavy leather satchel that the woman had dumped on the floor the moment she’d turned up. With a faint frown, he stood and walked around to the far side of the desk, lifting it up. The contents inside shifted faintly… he could just make out a wet, moist squelch from the inside of the bag.
Hesitantly, he opened up the flap… when he peeked inside, his eyes widened, and a green cast came to his cheeks.
The rest of the bar was very confused about why Jerrah suddenly burst from his office, two hours after his mysterious visitor had left, and spent the next twenty minutes vomiting copiously in the men’s room.
When he emerged, he calmly went back to his office, picked up the satchel, and deposited it in the waste disposal unit – ensuring that all trace of it and its contents were purged forever from his place of business.
Just one more mystery that the galaxy would never get an answer to.
The impact with the planet shook the pod hard, and there was a gentle hiss as the door slid open. The night sky above was full of stars; a configuration that seemed almost to entrance the figure as her pale fingers gripped the edge of the pod, and she rose out of it to look up into the alien sky. Kabocha.
It had been far too long.
She could feel some living beings converging on her location. Strong. Well. Stronger than most. She would have to move quickly.
When the patrol arrived, the six members of the Saiyan Elite found… nothing. Their scanners picked up no sign of life from the pod or the surrounding area. They weren’t going to take any chances, though; the war against the rebels in this system was growing increasingly brutal, even if the pod had just contained supplies, they needed to know where it had come from and where it was going.
“Looks like a stealth design.” One of the younger troopers said – a local girl, eager to prove her worth and a bit of a tech head in the Captain’s eyes. “Look at the heat sinks. If we hadn’t confirmed it visually we’d never have known it was here.”
“Good work.” The Captain said, begrudgingly. “Spread out and try to find any tracks. Someone has obviously beaten us to the punch here.”
And from the shadows, Sanngrior watched, her tongue slipping out to moisten her lips.
They were a well-trained group. A little green, perhaps, but when waging a war against an embittered guerrilla force, one either learned quickly or died. They moved in pairs, scouters scanning on wide for any sign of life. They didn’t take any chances, either; when a group on the outer perimeter found a small, fuzzy creature scurrying amongst the undergrowth, it met a violent end in a flurry of ki-powered blasts.
And then, as one, their scouters flared to life. The sudden flare of power was so unexpected, the group barely had time to start moving in the direction of the surge before it passed through them in a flurry of white and a gust of air.
“What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know! I couldn’t even see it! Where is it on the scanners?”
“Captain? Captain?”
“Where the hell is the Captain?!”
"He's not here."
Pukinpa City had changed so much since the last time she had been there. The City had a brutal look to it, the architecture pounded over and over again by vicious orbital bombardments. But, there were still the familiar hallmarks. The great statue at the centre of the City, commemorating the Pukinpa dynasty. The web of cracked and broken streets that spread from it, and how the further one got from the well-defended centre of the City, the darker and more miserable the place seemed, the walls hemming in the residents, pinning them with concrete and bare brushed metal.
Her feet knew the way, and she stepped down into the basement-level bar, past a bouncer who knew better than to even pretend to look at her for too long, let alone ask for ID. Inside, the room was a heated hell of sweat and stale alcohol. Sanngrior was curious to note that most of the people in here drinking were not locals, and none of them were saiyans. This was a bar for the pirates, the few remaining lawbreakers who clung on to Kabocha out of some misguided sense of loyalty or desperation. This was not a bar for anyone with sympathy to the Empire.
The bartender – a hulking beast with six spindly limbs attached to a hulking great torso, mostly using them to polish glasses at the moment, looked up from his work and noted the figure as she stepped through into the room.
“He’s out the back.”
Sanngrior favoured the bartender with a subtle nod of her head, and let her footsteps take her out of the public area and to the private place where she saw her old … friend.
“Jarrah.”
He was a tall man, and time had not been kind. His fine green mane was, Sanngrior was disappointed to notice, starting to grey at the temples with the encroaching of age – that most terrible and implacable of opponents. He was still a powerfully-built bear of a man, a seven-foot brute who towered above the slender figure who stepped into his office. Before, she had only ever seen him relaxed, in clothes that were expensive and spoke to the high standard of wealth that he considered so important to project as one of Kabocha’s more successful criminals.
Now, he was wearing expensive and very form-fitting combat armour that looked like it could absorb a goodly sized impact all on its own. Such things rarely helped in her experience, but it spoke to his level of nerves. His head snapped up when Sanngrior entered, and he rose from his seat to offer the woman his hand. She grasped it tightly, and shook his hand until he winced.
“Sanngrior. I’m glad you could come.”
His eyes drifted to the leather satchel she held in her free hand, and one eyebrow raised quizzically, but he didn’t say anything about it. If there was one thing he had learned about this one, it was that it was usually better to ask as few questions as possible – the answers were usually not pleasant.
The shadowed figure sat opposite the desk, and set the bag down next to her with a heavy thump. Her hands folded into her lap.
“I do not hold grudges, Jarrah.”
He sat back down, and tried not to look directly at the figure – there was just something about Sanngrior which set him on edge. He’d never liked her, but when things got desperate, it was necessary to look a little outside one’s comfort zone for solutions.
“I’m not sure I believe that, but I’m glad to hear you say it. You have to understand, last time you were here, you were drawing too much attention – you can’t make that sort of noise without someone eventually taking an interest.”
The young woman was silent. Her hooded features regarded him without a single hint of forgiveness, or remorse. It was like trying to talk to a statue – except statues didn’t tend to look quite so unnerving.
“Anyway. You’re here now and not a moment too soon. As I said, things have gotten difficult for us recently. The Saiyan Solar Empire has been cracking down hard, the Arcosian loyalists keep strafing the city, nowhere is safe and there are few places left for us to do business. We need to start pushing back against both powers.”
Sanngrior shrugged her shoulders lightly, “I’ve never killed an arcosian before.” She said, “I’ve often wondered if it is as difficult as they say.”
Jerrah leaned back in his chair, netting his hands behind his head. “There aren’t many arcosians here. Mostly, you’re going to be killing saiyans and Kabochan loyalists, I expect.”
“Oh.”
She seemed to think about it for a moment, and then nodded her head. “I’ve killed plenty of them in the past.”
“Yes, well, there’ll be more to this than just killing.”
Again, the silence grew between them, until at last Sanngrior relented – raising her hand up to wave vaguely in his direction. “Elaborate.”
Jerrah narrowed his eyes at the young woman, and reached into a cunningly-concealed pocket in his armour. He withdrew a cigar, which he chomped down on, lighting it up with a flare from his fingertips and taking a deep lungful of the thick, pungent smoke.
“If you just start killing them, that’s not going to achieve our goal. Sooner or later, they’ll just send enough forces to drive you out or kill you.”
Sanngrior showed absolutely no sign of acknowledging this as a fact.
“What we need to do, is band together. Get enough people on side to take the fight to them, make it not worth their time any more to try and hang on here. You know how you win a war?”
Again, Sanngrior remained silent. The silence seemed almost to swallow the man’s words, but he didn’t care; he kept just trying to fill that void, at any rate.
“You win it by removing the reason for them to fight. It’s difficult with saiyans, because they mostly fight just to prove they can, but it isn’t impossible. We make it enough of a pain in their rear, and they’ll run off to focus on another part of the galaxy… and the arcosians? They’re in such disarray after that bitch died they’re almost out of the game already.”
Sanngrior grunted faintly, and shrugged her shoulders. “So you want me to kill people, but the right people, and you want me to work as part of a team.”
Jerrah stood up, and offered his hand to the woman, beaming from ear to ear. The big kabochan looked incredibly pleased with himself. “See? I knew you weren’t just a brute, Sann! You’ve got the right idea. You’re tough enough to be our symbol, and with you to rally around, the pirates of Kabocha will rise up and throw off the shackles of oppression!”
Sanngrior rose as well, but she merely stared at the offered hand until it was hesitantly retracted once more.
“I have three conditions.”
Hesitantly, Jerrah nodded his head. “Okay, well, what are they?”
Her hand raised, one finger pointing towards the ceiling.
“First. If I am to rally pirates, I will need a ship. You will obtain one of suitable quality.”
“Not a problem.”
The second finger raised up.
“Secondly. I am not going to wear any ridiculous hats. If you attempt to make me wear one, I will leave, and I will take my new ship with me.”
The large kabochan seemed to relax some, smiling again as though she were sharing some joke with him.
“Wouldn’t even cross my mind. What’s the last condition?”
Her third finger raised, and then she pointed them towards the large man.
“If you ever call me Sann again, I will kill you. My name. Is Sanngrior.”
That smile faded just as quickly as it had come back, and he held up both of his hands. “O-Okay, sure, Sanngrior, that, seems fair. I’ll keep it in mind.”
With that, Sanngrior stood and turned her back on him, stalking out of the office. She still had a great deal of work to do to make herself comfortable here, after all. Jerrah was not upset to see the back of her. Although she was the best candidate he could think of – mostly because the idea of someone capable of intimidating that was genuinely horrifying.
It wasn’t until she was long gone that he realized there was a bag still left in his office. The heavy leather satchel that the woman had dumped on the floor the moment she’d turned up. With a faint frown, he stood and walked around to the far side of the desk, lifting it up. The contents inside shifted faintly… he could just make out a wet, moist squelch from the inside of the bag.
Hesitantly, he opened up the flap… when he peeked inside, his eyes widened, and a green cast came to his cheeks.
The rest of the bar was very confused about why Jerrah suddenly burst from his office, two hours after his mysterious visitor had left, and spent the next twenty minutes vomiting copiously in the men’s room.
When he emerged, he calmly went back to his office, picked up the satchel, and deposited it in the waste disposal unit – ensuring that all trace of it and its contents were purged forever from his place of business.
Just one more mystery that the galaxy would never get an answer to.