Flash-sideways.
Quill and Padelheb walk in silence back to Quill's old wormhole lab.
They round a final bend and walk through an open door to see a long-haired woman in a red lab coat already working at the circular control console of the wormhole stabilizer.
Quill recognized her and is surprised. “What - why are you here?”
The woman turns around. “Erin Quill?” She whirls upon Padelheb. “I told you not to let him out! I can handle this!”
“Oh, you're taking your security advice from her?” Quill scoffs.
“You know her?” Padelheb asks.
“Yeah, I do,” says Quill sardonically. “Mira Kaethalyn. So you work for this git now, don’t you? What are you actually doing? Get away from that control panel. You’re going to mess something up.”
Quill moves to the control console and pushes Mira away. She stands off to the side. “Just as I remember you, Erin,” she says. “Arrogant as ever.”
Quill sighs, hands moving over the keyboards and switches. “That’s for a good reason. When other people mess with my stuff, bad things tend to happen.”
“Just the same. You’ll eventually have to admit that other people can have good ideas too, you know,” Mira shoots back.
“We’ll see about that!” growls Quill. He reaches down under the panel and hits a button. The panel lights up as screens come on and buttons begin to glow.
“How did you do that?” asks Mira, surprised. “We’ve been trying to get that to work for hours!”
“Hidden fingerprint scanner under the panel,” Erin Quill replies. “And don’t starting thinking of cutting my fingers off, I didn’t tell you which finger you have to cut off. Now what in the name of Acter is going on here?”
He turns on a screen, which displays a warning in big letters: WARNING: CONTAINMENT SYSTEMS FAILING: 2HR 32MINS
“Now, just what did you do to this thing?” Quill asks.
Padelheb shoots a look at Mira. “Mira, don’t-”
Mira ignores him. “I modulated the power input to change the settings on the regulation module.”
Quill slams his fists on the panel and whirls around. “You did-”
“It worked, Quill! You can't deny that it worked!”
“Hell yes it worked,” says Quill, glaring daggers at Mira. “Of course it worked. It also pushes the wormhole to the very edge of it's operating envelope.”
“Well, if someone hadn't built in so many layers of security into his system we wouldn't have had to do this!” retorts Mira.
“That regulator was designed to prevent voltage fluctuations from de-powering the containment generators which, let me remind you, will cause the absolute destruction of all life on this continent when they break!” Quill shouts. “It’s situations like this that make me regret forming all those rules to disallow having people shot for incompetence! Oh wait,” he continues, pulling out a revolver from a hidden compartment. “I never did get around to making those rules! Now shut up while I undo all the dumb that you just did!”
“Just trying my hand at a bit of counterespionage,” Celling reassures Fansworth.
Fansworth is not reassured. “You tipped him off? Now the superiors will know!”
“Don’t worry,” Celling answers. “We have him under surveillance. But forget that. Are you sure that you are fit for duty after what David told you about your family?”
Fansworth straightens up and glares at Celling. “I have no idea who he is or what he thinks he’s going to accomplish. But I’ll be damned before I abandon my duty on the word of a-”
“She’d still be alive if it wasn’t for you,” David calls from several meters away.
Fansworth whirls around to look at him.
“Sorry. That wasn't an actual future prediction, just a shot in the psychological dark.” David leans against a nearby boulder. “If I was being specific for you, I’d also mention that it was around four years ago, when you overlooked a bit of something that caught your eye, and then-”
“How do you know this about me?” Fansworth demands. “Have you been studying my past?”
“Close. I’ve been studying your future,” David Eborrenial answers.
Fansworth glances at him suspiciously, then turns around and furiously marches off.
Celling walks up to David’s rock. “Wow. How’d you do that? I thought you don’t have perfect knowledge of the past.”
David looks up at him. “I can peek into the future where I say each thing and just read their reaction. If it’s wrong, they are just totally baffled. That, combined with a judicious amount of educated guessing, means that I can pull out some really scary things.” He leaned back and patted the rock he was sitting on. “This is a real nice piece of granite. Can I have it airlifted back to the mountain?”
Strategist Roboson walks over as well. “Why are you suggesting we airlift a rock?”
Eborrenial turns to him. “Its density and shape resonate in the psychic spectra I use to see the future. Some rocks do. I don’t know why. It probably contains a geode. In short, stuff you don’t get.” He stands back up. “Angela, chalk?”
The girl that came with him throws him a piece of blue chalk. He uses it to draw a large circle on the pavement and then a small five-point star inside. “Lithium?”
The man throws a small vial at him. He catches it, turns it over, and dumps the silvery metal on the ground. He then picks up his staff - which he’d leaned against a nearby tree - and holds it over the star.
“Statim Ferociter Danaan Abest QUOQUE Hespersus!” he shouts. As he chants golden symbols appear on the staff, simmering beams of light streaking out of them. He slams the staff down on the pavement and a set of quivering runes appears on the ground, like waves in a pond. David flips over the staff.
Roboson takes notice. “What the-”
“Dakara Oberoth Eschaton El ETIAM Kairos Papyrus!” David continues. His voice takes on an unearthly quality as wind begins to blow and mist rises from the ground. He slams the staff on the ground and flips it over again. Once more blue symbols appear for an instant, this time arranged clearly into two rotating rings.
“Astartes Domus Clavis DODEKA Akallabeth Cenaster Grimmer Palantir!” he chants. He brings the staff down, causing three counter-rotating rings of light to form, then lets it go. The staff rotates in midair as smoke covers the ground and David rises in the air, coat flapping in the wind, eyes shimmering with power. “I AM DAVID EBORRENIAL, LEADER OF THE PROTINAM, HIGH VISIONARY!” he shouts. The smoke rises and a bone-chilling tone rings ou, growing in intensity. David turns his head to the skies, eyes visible as pinpricks of light in a dark silouette. “THE MYSTERIES OF TIME AND THE MASTERY OF THE FUTURE ARE MINE! I CALL UPON THE ONE BEYOND THE END TO REVEAL THE FATE OF THE WORLDS TO-”
“That’s quite enough wind,” says Angela. The piercing tone stops. David falls like a stone out of the sky. The smoke and the symbols fade, leaving the staff rotating slowly around its axis in midair.
“Aw god, these contacts hurt!” says David, rubbing his eyes.
“Wait wait wait,” says Celling. “This whole thing was-”
“Fake? Oh, yeah. Using Protinam powers doesn’t make your eyes glow. I put on reflective contacts and then snuck in a light somewhere back there.”
“And the smoke?” asks Roboson.
“Dry-ice based fog machines stuck into the brush and a box fan inside the nearest building.”
“But the floating?” presses Celling. “That can’t be done with smoke and mirrors.”
David lifts a ornamented metal necklace from inside his shirt. “Andantesite cabochon in the amulet. Making it into a circular shape diffused the gamma laser light enough that a good deal of lead shielding could take it down to non-harmful levels. Lets me fly for short periods.”
“Wait, so that was all for show?” Celling demands.
David gestures at the staff spinning placidly in its circle. Every now and then there is a click and a symbol appears on its surface, as if drawn in molten gold. “All that was really needed to cast that was the chanting. Everything else is just me being dramatic. Now get me a lawn chair and a pina colada, cause we’re in for the long run.”
Effect of David Eborrenial: Combat Clairvoyance
You can reroll any dice.
No exceptions. No limits. Every dice. (If I roll two or more to determine an action, you have to roll both as one.)
You can only reroll it once and you don’t take better of two, so be careful about how you use this.
To start, here are your options as to how to attack the dock.
A: Set up a presence on the only way out from the dock; wait for them to come out. Possibility of reinforcements, and lying in wait is always better, but they may find another way out in the meantime.
B: Discreetly do recon on the dock under the pretense of a regular inspection or something. We might get some information on where the rebels are, but we will be disorganized and unprepared for combat.
C: Just shout that we have them surrounded and go through each house one by one. This is the most efficient and fastest way to do this and probably leads to the fewest people getting hurt, but it instantly lets them know that we’re there as well as triggering all manner of chase tropes.
D: Have forces go onto the dock and directly set up guard around the several ships that are parked at the end. This instantly and completely nihls out the chance of them stealing one, but leaves our troops in a rather vulnerable position to organized resistance
E: The exact opposite. Aim to force them onto the ships and then just have a few torpedo boats sitting by to sink whichever one they pick. This is a really audacious plan and it’s going to be tough explaining how you know they’ll pick a ship. It might not even work.
F: Something else. We are currently out of contact with Goonswarm, so don’t try that.
Poll
13 (46.4%)
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Topic: (SG) SPAMOVERLORD: Epilogue: Guest Week (Read 303809 times)