Oschmann's "cultural weapon" is an actual historical rapier, totally unsuited for fencing competitions, but eminently suited for things like fighting death duels with Klingons.
I feel I should apologize for Rrueo in that one. Her investigations into therapsid anatomy were most unscientific indeed.
And a historical rapier is actually made for poking small, lethal holes in people.
You need something big and broad to cut off appendages. See, sword-fighting isn't a dance like Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn would have you believe. It's more of a wrestling match with pointy sticks, which is why the Roman short stabbing sword was so effective; in an age before the introduction of full field plate, a stabbing strike with a short, robust weapon was ideal for piercing primitive armors and destroying vital organs.
With the introduction of heavier plate armor, the focus of sword combat by necessity shifted towards plate's weak points at the joints; a broadsword or two-handed sword is DESIGNED to deliver a power stroke to a joint and sever an appendage. It's incredibly useful against unarmored or lightly-armored men but it relies on the wielder wearing heavy plate so that he or she doesn't get speared in mid-stroke. Of course, a good longbowman can punch through plate like cheese, as can a well-designed crossbow, but in melee combat the biggest threat to a man in a can is a broadsword to cut off his limbs.
The rapier was originally a descendant of the court sword, designed for more ceremonial and formal uses such as unarmored duels; in an unarmored duel, the focus was on piercing vital organs while appearing gentlemanly and elegant; that's not a venue where limb chopping is appropriate, and so a rapier just doesn't have the raw heft to take off a hand.
About the only movie I can think of that really does this RIGHT is "Rob Roy"--the ending scene clearly shows the proper fighting styles, for broadsword and rapier, and with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
I don't want to get into another lengthy argument, here, but I'm not writing from a position of ignorance in this case - before advancing years and chronic lower back pain forced me into more sedentary pursuits, I used to be reasonably competent with a number of the weapons you mention. (More of an archer than a swordsman, I'll admit.)
People do get these overly doctrinaire ideas about what weapons are used for.... While the primary use of the rapier is traditionally (from the 1600s on) in thrusting styles, it is generally sharpened for either half or the full length of the blade, and that is most assuredly not just for show. (A historical rapier is not much lighter than, and every bit as sharp as, a Japanese katana - a weapon nobody has problems believing can cause an amputation. The katana is somewhat more effective as a slashing weapon, due to the curve of the blade - but "less effective than a well-made katana" is still something you do not want to get an extremity in the way of, believe me.)
A proper sword fight would include a lot of punching and kicking - especially with a broadsword or claymore, both of which were essentially large slabs of vaguely-sharpened steel suitable for bashing someone covered in the stuff.
I think you may be confusing "rapier" with "epee", Worffan; it's a common confusion in the modern audience. A historical rapier would be somewhat slimmer and lighter than a saber, but still an edged weapon suitable for lopping parts off someone wearing anything less defensive than chain. Now, I certainly wouldn't want to try to bring a rapier to bear against someone wielding a broadsword who actually knew how to use it, because he'd whack my lighter blade aside like a baseball bat against a golf club before removing my sword arm and then my head.
Fortunately for Oschmann, the Vaadwaur aren't carrying any swords at all, believing that in the absence of energy weapons their "primitive" projectile guns will be more than enough to overwhelm their sophisticated opponents. Pity they didn't do a little more research on those "Alphans" before arrogantly dismissing them...
I'm talking about the pointed dueling weapon, used in Renaissance and early modern duels before the advent of pistol dueling.
That's not a weapon designed to cut off limbs, it''s designed to be used to (a) poke holes in people and (b) knock aside a similarly light weapon.
If it's an Italian side-sword, then it might be able to cut off a hand, but that's still shearing humanoid bone, a substance that can break concrete. A side-sword is only a little thinner and narrower than an arming sword, and that's about the lower limit of limb-chopping; a rapier is longer, slimmer, and thinner; still considerably larger than a foil but designed first and foremost for stabbing. That's a three-foot blade weighing in at about a kilo, definitely not hefty enough to shear a wrist in combat. Maybe under ideal conditions it could make the cut with one to three strikes, but not in combat when wielded by a relatively small person.
Toriash could probably do it, but I don't think Oschmann could unless she's pretty heavily boosted.
Katanas are usually around 2-2.5 feet and weigh closer to 1.3 kilos; shorter and heftier than a rapier. Plus, one-sided, curved weapons like the katana and the cavalry saber are designed for the slashing stroke, and have a hefty blade designed to support a chop.
A modern carbon-steel saber is lighter and stronger than an antique saber thanks to modern steel-making techniques and materials science; THAT can weigh in at a kilo and be three feet and still cleave limbs, but it's used in a long sweeping stroke to build up momentum and is fundamentally a one-sided, curved cleaving weapon, with a blade notably broader than that of a rapier.
tl;dr: I'm skeptical, even given 25th century tech.
And artistically, I think it would've been cooler to have her impale the Vaadwaur straight-up.
There was nothing "vaguely" sharp about a claymore or a broadsword. Techniques of pattern welding (basically, enabling a relatively brittle, sharp cutting edge to be happily married to a more flexible spine) spread through western Europe as early as the sixth century CE. There's even a reference to it in Beowulf, in fact.
A well-made, well-maintained (you have to keep these things sharpened and protected against rust) Anglo-Saxon sword was literally razor-sharp - you could shave with it if you'd a mind to. What weapons of this kind could do to people - well, there is, or used to be, an online reference to the archaeological finds at Visby, where a lot of human remains from a famous battle were found in reasonably good states of preservation. We are talking about sections of skull being sheared away with startling neatness, or one chap who was found with both femurs severed by a single sword blow. (History is silent on whether he subsequently said, "'Tis but a scratch," but I like to think that he did.)
As regards impaling: even if your blade doesn't snag on bone (or have useless secondary side-blades like Rrueo's d'k tahg), the simple pressure of flesh against the flat of the blade means that it can be very hard to pull it back out once it's in. (I hasten to add that I don't have direct practical experience of this - I think the problem is referred to, though, in forensic scientist Keith Simpson's entertaining memoir Forty Years of Murder. Fun bedtime reading for all the family.) This is not necessarily a problem in the sort of formal or semi-formal one-on-one encounters that the fencing schools trained you for - if you only have one opponent, you can take as long as you like to extract your weapon from him. Oschmann, though, is no kind of fool, and doesn't fancy leaving her best weapon stuck in one Vaadwaur while there are others about, so she's attacking with slashing rather than thrusting techniques.
Unlike Shevet, I actually am writing from a position of ignorance. But given the current rate of technological progression, I don't see why that would be a problem. If a modern carbon-steel rapier can cause an amputation, it's hard to believe that a rapier made four centuries from now wouldn't be able to. And even with a dampening field, there are probably ways to, shall we say, energetically augment a blade. Chemical batteries can create a rather nasty electrical current.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
That's what it takes to break a typical adult femur. (that's the big bones in your legs), it's all a matter of angle-of-attack.
to give you an idea of what that scales to, my cat weighs ten pounds, but the weight/force is distrbuted.
a Healthy adult human can apply more than sixteen pounds with a long, narrow rod like a Rapier if they have adequate and appropriate training-there's a reason fencing outfits are padded to distribute the impact force of the blows.
a bullwhip-without a weighted end (a prop whip, if you will) can break bone-and it weighs LESS.
the key elements here are speed and sharpness. a Rapier half-sharpened (sharpened to half it's length) delivered by a trained hand, can shear through the flesh, with enough force to break the bone in an un-armored opponent rather quite easily, especially if it's 'Historical weight' rather than 'Sporting weight'. (again, assuming correct angle of attack).
But to cut off a hand at the wrist, in combat, the opponent holding a gun?
I don't think that that angle is good for shearing through (NOT snapping) bones.
A heavier weapon like a cavalry saber or an axe, maybe a Klingon mek'leth, used in a sweeping stroke, that I can buy. Bat'leth, maybe an overhand chop to the chest, which is a bloody stupid way to use the thing. Rapier? I can see it slicing meat, not bone.
the human wrist is a complex joint with lots of cartilage-I'd rather suspect Vaduar wrists are also complex, mostly cartilage structures with some bone. It's easier than going through the Radius and Ulna at the wrist-you're actually going against LESS bone than you would otheriwise.
Pull up an anatomy book, and take a look. fast-moving-and-sharp will definitely be more likely to lop a hand off, than an arm.
(also check out figures on industrial accidents sometime... baling wire machines have taken hands and arms-and that **** isn't even sharp)
Bailing wire machines have a lot of force, though.
Yeah, but you'd think that the bone structure of the wrist would actually hinder a chop; cartilage is a devil to cut because it's so springy, and those bones are...eh, if you hit it at JUST the right angle it'd come clean off with any bladed weapon, but it's still considerably less effective (and less elegant ) than just impaling the Vaad and having done with.
One, still liking this story, can't wait for more.
Two, part of me is laughing that in a setting with FTL travel, energy weapons, and all sorts of hand-wavium, one line about a rapier cutting off a hand is what causes the suspenders of disbelief to fail and drop the pants of imagination to the harsh floor of mundanity as I read once.
Three, to prove my status as a hypocrite, I looked around, and depending on what kind of rapier was being used, I'd have to give the idea of a rapier cutting off a hand a qualified maybe. Strangely I couldn't find someone testing the idea, but I did find this video of some water filled bottle destruction.
Looking some more, the general consensus seems to be most rapiers are more thrusting weapons that cutting, but depending on the specific type they can cut (see the above video) and no one seems to be willing to say cutting off a hand with a rapier couldn't be done.
Not denying it's possible, under the right circumstances, but under the given circumstances I'm not confident that it'd be that easy even with 25th century tech.
Also, I think that an impaling strike would've looked a lot cooler.
One, still liking this story, can't wait for more.
Two, part of me is laughing that in a setting with FTL travel, energy weapons, and all sorts of hand-wavium, one line about a rapier cutting off a hand is what causes the suspenders of disbelief to fail and drop the pants of imagination to the harsh floor of mundanity as I read once.
Three, to prove my status as a hypocrite, I looked around, and depending on what kind of rapier was being used, I'd have to give the idea of a rapier cutting off a hand a qualified maybe. Strangely I couldn't find someone testing the idea, but I did find this video of some water filled bottle destruction.
Looking some more, the general consensus seems to be most rapiers are more thrusting weapons that cutting, but depending on the specific type they can cut (see the above video) and no one seems to be willing to say cutting off a hand with a rapier couldn't be done.
Pretty much all of this was what I was going to say. It's a future rapier. Advanced construction and molecular edges and whatnot. Science!
Really it doesn't matter. Rrueo can score steel and her officer can cut off hands. These are things that have happened. It might be better to ask yourself why Oschmann uses a rapier. Beyond being a human weapon, what is it is telling us about the character.
Also, learned something new today. The blade of a rapier is referred to in musical terms. This, I think is why bards and rapiers are so closely associated in fantasy. That's neat.
One, still liking this story, can't wait for more.
Two, part of me is laughing that in a setting with FTL travel, energy weapons, and all sorts of hand-wavium, one line about a rapier cutting off a hand is what causes the suspenders of disbelief to fail and drop the pants of imagination to the harsh floor of mundanity as I read once.
That actually makes a lot more sense than it seems at first sight. If it's just handwavium, i.e. you don't explain exactly what it is you're doing, you can do anything you like; it's the points where the story touches on reality that have to be solid and accurate, because then it's possible to tell. Like that recent Doctor Who episode about the Moon, that made everyone so cross. You can talk as long as you like about helicon energy and cyborgs moving out of phase with reality and so on, and none dares answer, nay; but if you claim that an egg suspended in a vacuum would gain mass as it develops, everyone will know you're talking rubbish.
But, if points like that come off right, they're 100% worth it, for the same reason really: they give the reader something they can get a grip on, and think "Will they be able to do it?", whereas if it's pure handwavium, the answer to that question is just "Dunno, they will be if the author feels like it I suppose". I'm thinking about the sand and the leaf in that heist chapter. That just nailed the whole sequence into place, for me.
As for the actual sword question, so, what it boils down to is that a rapier would be sharp enough but without the weight of a heavy sword behind the blow, there wouldn't be enough force? Well, I can't see how advanced technology could make the sword exert any more force, but as blackblackwyrm says it could be extremely sharp, and off the top of my head I'd have thought that would decrease the force required - same force on a smaller area equals more pressure. In any case, though, the whole question assumes that Oschmann herself is a standard model - which we have no particular reason to think is the case. The Federation seems to look a bit sideways at any kind of physical augmentation, but she's not in the Federation, is she?
Great stuff, Shevet - I haven't much of a stomach for fight scenes and I still enjoyed that, it's just so tightly put together, you can visualise exactly what Rrueo's trying to do at every moment and bite your nails wondering if she'll pull it off!
"Three can keep a secret if but two of them are dead," Hal Welti quotes at me in lugubrious tones.
And seventy-odd stood no chance at all. Whoever's earwigging Delta Command communications is listening out for Hazari chatter too, and this gathering must have shown up on their radar. Dunno how much they actually know, but it was enough to pass on to the Vaadwaur.
And the Hazari planetoid is uncomfortably close to an uncharted Underspace exit, it turns out. So, when the Vaadwaur ship popped out of that, with its damping-field satellite in tow, we had only a couple of minutes to respond - and we hadn't even got within weapons range when the satellite went live, and our power systems went dead. The Hazari frigates picketing the planetoid, and the Timor, were caught in the field too, and are now drifting uselessly in elliptical orbits. Like us.
Damn it. I hate being useless.
We're so useless the Vaadwaur didn't even bother to kill us. The interdictor cruiser is hanging in high orbit, just far enough on the other side of the satellite that it's not caught in the damping field. The huge curving antennae on that satellite make the field highly directional - it engulfs the planetoid and the near orbitals, but the Vaadwaur ship can stay within a few kilometres on the back side of it, monitoring it and feeding it energy. And monitoring the other satellite assembly, too. The one that's the other half of a really pretty neat orbital siege package....
Directed energy weapons will diffuse to uselessness in the damping field; torpedoes will lose motive power and control. But the railgun, squatting out by the Vaadwaur cruiser like a malignant stinging insect, is delivering pure kinetic projectiles, chunks of meteoritic nickel-iron most likely, simple slugs that cross space to the planetoid in seconds, and are meticulously pounding the Hazari station into wreckage.
Sound doesn't travel through space. It's just my imagination that's adding the ka-THUMP every time that railgun fires.
"We got any sort of capabilities yet?" I ask. I should know better, but I ask anyway.
"Main power is out, auxiliary is fluctuating," Goyar reports. "Computer core keeps going into power-save mode. I can keep life support going, but generating countermeasures -" He shakes his head.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit," I mutter. "The Vaadwaur got their shuttles through the damping field -"
"They went through on thrusters only," says Ajbit. "Besides, they know the frequencies of the field... they can tune out at least some of the effect. Pex, face facts, there's nothing we can do. I know you want to play the angles, to find some way, but it just isn't going to work."
"Those Vaadwaur troop shuttles were antiques," I mutter, "but we're an antique, too, practically - Wait." Something's glimmering in the back of my mind. "What did you say just then?"
"I said, there's nothing we can do." Ajbit is sounding exasperated.
"After that." The thought coalesces in my mind. I jump up out of the command chair. "Come on."
Ajbit shakes her head. "Where to?"
"Shuttle bay." I look around. Goyar needs to stay at engineering, to keep life support online. I need one science officer at least trying to crack this damn field, so that leaves Voesyy out - Hal is versatile, he can help them - "Veb, you and Ajbit with me."
The Pakled smiles. "We make the shuttle go?"
"That's the plan. Thrusters only, but the shuttle's an antique like the Vaadwaur, it's got decent speed and manoeuvre capacity on thrusters, right?"
"And no shields or weapons," Ajbit points out.
"Won't need 'em. Shuttle doesn't have an EPS grid either, so no power fluctuations, so its computer will work." I head for the bridge doors. "Gonna need the computer. Seriously, guys, I've got an idea here."
Vebanillo follows with alacrity. Ajbit follows with a frown, but she follows, which is all I could ask. We work the hydraulics on the door.
We think of ships like the Ostankino as Kazon heavy raiders, but in fact they were designed, and most of them built, by a species called the Trabe, who kept the Kazon as sort of pets. Worked out about as well for them as you might have expected. Point is, though, the ships they built for their pets are robust, simple, and largely idiot-proof, which they kinda had to be, because they were crewed by idiots. A heavy raider in a good state of maintenance - which the Ostankino is, despite all the crud on the main viewscreen - is a pretty effective ship, really. And it is simple and durable, so if things go wrong, there is always a way around it. Power is being diverted from trivia like the sliding doors, but we can hand-crank 'em with the hydraulics. The same goes for the doors of the small shuttle bay, though they'll need some hard cranking. Which is what Ajbit and Veb are here for.
It doesn't take long to reach the shuttle bay. But it's long enough for another ka-THUMP from that railgun, more than one in fact. I don't want to think about what must be happening inside the Hazari station. I rummage in a locker, drag out an EV suit, and start putting it on.
"Pex," Ajbit says, "what exactly is the plan here?"
"Playing the angles, like you said. That railgun is banging away in a predictable pattern, and we can use that."
"Until they change it," says Ajbit.
"They won't. They can't. Their own troops are down there, comms are gonna be sketchy at best, they must know the schedule so they can be somewhere the railgun rounds aren't coming down." Even so, it's a hell of a risky plan, cavalier with the lives of their own soldiers as well as the civilians on the station. Typically Vaadwaur, in fact. I shrug into the EV suit. "I'm taking the shuttle out, and I'm gonna break that pattern for them."
"And likely the shuttle too," Ajbit points out.
"Eggs, omelettes, whatever. C'mon, I need to be onboard." Veb has cranked the main bay doors open already, bless her. The three of us work on extending the internal docking tube that latches onto the shuttle's hatch. Once it's locked, I clamber through. Ajbit starts to follow.
"No need," I say. "Don't need a tailgunner, or an engineer, or a radar operator. This'll only take one of us, believe me."
Ajbit stops. She looks at me very hard indeed. "I hope to hell you know what you're doing, Pex," she says.
"I am on this," I assure her, and I duck through the hatch before she can come up with a comeback. I settle myself in the pilot seat of the shuttlepod, put my suit's gloves and helmet on the deck beside me. "OK. Pull the docking tube and release the main latches," I say into the comms. Standard wiring, no EPS grid, still works. Antique tech, gotta love it sometimes.
There are clunks and bangs against the hull. I turn around and fiddle with the comms board. "Got a laser link going," I say. "Oh, yeah, testing, testing, come in Ostankino, all that."
"Receiving you," says Ajbit's voice. The laser link will degrade in the damping field, but it should hold up long enough. I can't take too long about this anyway, entirely too many ka-THUMPs have already gone by. "Main latches retracted, shuttle is clear for exit."
"OK, then." I hit the controls. The main drive is dead, but the thrusters work just fine. Reaction mass hisses through the RCS arrays, and through the forward viewport I see the wall of the docking bay slide away, revealing the stars and the round bulk of the planetoid beyond. I punch the control board again, and the shuttle moves forwards and down, away from the ship.
Got to be sparing of that reaction mass.... I turn to the other side of the cockpit, and start banging the parameters of the problem into the shuttle's computer.
It's a simple one, really, in concept at least. In practice, it needs precise calculation, way more precise than I or any organic being can muster - but, hey, that's why we have computers. Maybe Unity should be here instead of me -
I think that, and then I think, no. My crazy idea, my risk. Them's the rules.
"What exactly are you doing?" Ajbit's voice asks.
"Like you said. Playing the angles. Those domes on the surface, over the docking bays, they're armoured, right?" And we have specs on that Hazari armour. We have specs on a whole bunch of things we probably shouldn't have, that's kinda the point of us.
"Not hard enough. The railgun slugs are punching straight through."
"'cause they're coming straight in," I say absently, as I study the computer simulation. It is possible. Chancy, but possible. My mouth goes dry as I realize I'm actually gonna have to do this. "Give one a nudge, make it hit at an angle, it'll glance off, right?"
"You can't nudge a railgun slug with the shuttle!"
"Well," I say, "I reckon I can't nudge more than one railgun slug with the shuttle, but one might be enough, right? It glances off, it's got to go somewhere."
"You're trying to set up controlled ricochets to -?"
"Simple problem in trajectories, right? We know all the factors." And the computer has them laid out, glowing lines describing the vectors I need - I start checking the mass factors, though I already know what they'll say.
"You're insane. There's always an error factor, and even the slightest error -"
"Not at this close range. That satellite's antennae are big." I set the automated sequence into the navigation board. The shuttle's computer is pretty stupid. Good enough to calculate the angles, not quite good enough to realize it's committing suicide. Poor computer.
The seat kicks against my spine as the main thrusters fire. The shuttle turns, then straightens out again.
"If they realise what you're up to, one burst from that cruiser -"
"Will fade out in the damping field, and a torpedo won't reach me in time. Besides, they'll just think like you, they'll reckon I'm crazy and it won't work."
Ajbit is silent for a moment. Outside, everything looks deceptively still. I'm not moving anywhere near fast enough for apparent star motion, and I can't see the planetoid from this angle, and everything else is just a bright dot in space.
"OK," she says, "it's worth a try. But I don't know how we're going to recover you if it doesn't work."
"Well, that's my problem, right?" I say as airily as I can. I've set up a countdown, and the numbers are already getting too small for my liking.
"You'll need to eject inside the next minute," says Ajbit.
"Yeah," I say. I twist around far enough to reach the engineering console, and I make all the adjustments I can.
"Seriously. If you don't eject right now, you'll be in the danger radius if - when - the shuttle blows."
"Um, yeah, about that," I say. I slip on the suit's gloves and seal them, pick up the helmet and push it into place. The suit's comms take over seamlessly. "See, this kinda depends on hitting the slug with all the mass I've got available. Like, all the mass. Once I've expended the reaction mass to get to the intersection point, well -" I shrug. "Can't lose any more. Them's the breaks."
"Pex -!"
"Relax. I've dumped everything into the inertial dampers, and I'm turning my suit's fields up to max, and anyway it'll be a glancing blow, right? See you on the flip side. Probably. If not, can you start the paperwork to get a new shuttle, like, now? Quicker the better, you know what Logistics Bureau is like out here."
The stars are still, the sky is motionless. But somewhere up above me, the railgun is proceeding on its remorseless pre-programmed sequence, and my countdown is in its dying instants, and the railgun has already gone ka-
The THUMP hits me everywhere at once, a jolt that goes right through every molecule of me in an instant of pressure that transcends pain. It's followed by a moment of absolute nothing, silence, blackness and free fall. Perhaps I'm dead. It'd make sense.
Then blurry vision returns, and with it a physical sensation, a sort of solid all-over ache as if my whole body's been turned to pain. Stars. I see stars, mostly not inside my head. They are swirling and turning, and I see a lot of them through the viewport -
No. Not through the viewport. The entire nose of the shuttle is gone, I'm looking at naked space. I look down a little, and for a brief moment spot the control console. Then it breaks free, torn loose by inertial forces, whirling off into space.
The shuttle is coming apart. Only to be expected. I push against the arms of the pilot's seat, and the pain gets an awful lot worse, but I lever myself up and drop gracelessly forwards and out through the big hole where the front of the shuttle was. I reach my wrist control with what feels like the last of my strength, and touch the emergency button. The suit's thrusters go into "bug out" mode, firing, pushing me in any direction so long as it's away. That hurts, too, rather a lot.
At some point, somewhere behind me, the wreck of the shuttle blows up. Dimly, I feel a waft of expanding gases push into me, and a couple of glancing blows from more solid debris. Something knocks the heel of one boot, hard, and I start spinning. Thrusters are drained. So am I. No way to stop....
I hang there, revolving in the heavens. The planetoid, some distance away, spins past me. I can't see if there are any fresh impact scars on the armoured domes. I hope there are. And they're on the ones I aimed for....
Simple physics. Well, simple if you've got a computer to do the sums. The railgun slug took a glancing hit from the shuttle, and that made it glance off one dome, then ricochet off another - and then off into the depths of space. Only, if the computer and I got it right, paying one last call on the Vaadwaur's damping satellite.
Something blasts into my ears. That hurts, too. Let's face it, everything hurts. But this hurty thing is a voice, and after a little while I work out what it's saying.
" - field is down, we have main power online! Timor is moving to engagement range with the Vaadwaur! Pex, we're moving to assist just as soon as we've recovered you, don't move! Pex, respond, please!"
"Don' worry," I mumble into the suit's mic. "Tol' you I'd see you on th' flip side, right? Don' worry... not goin' anywhere...."
Actually, I'm going plenty of places, spinning on some random course above the planetoid, a course I can't even make a vague guess at. There's nothing I can do about that, though. After a while, the revolving starscape starts to make me nauseous, so I close my eyes.
I hope she succeeded in her noble sacrifice. The sacrifice part, at least.
Nice that she's a hypocrite again; her last couple of idiot plans risked a lot more than just her.
Well-written and -paced as usual, but I doubt that a Duntless will last more than a few seconds against a Vaadwaur interdictor cruiser; I've seen Scimitars have trouble with those, and a Duntless is a bit of glass without the sci power to play space mage and not enough tac power to sustain damage.
The only way M'eioi's taking Tuarak's ship down without Rrueo's help is by ramming it. I mean, this is taking a Duntless up against a Vaad BC in a PVP match; no contest, the Vaad's going to win.
Now the QIb is a lethally powerful ship; think fleet k'tinga but better. With Rrueo's help, Tuarak's screwed.
While I chose not to read it closely, you did not deserve the treatment you got. No author does, especially those who clearly put a great deal of time and effort into their work as you do.
The way I looked at it was this. That Delta Quadrant stories aren't so much my cup of tea is a personal problem. It's not the author's fault. And it's not my place to dump on another author just because my preferences don't align.
I realize closure is coming and I also want to make clear that I will not be engaging anyone in debate or further discussion here. But it needs to be said and I feel it needs to be said publicly as an example for all of us, including myself, to take to heart: how we treat each other has a REAL impact behind the screen. And haranguing another author to death, attempting to rewrite their story in one's own image, and breaking their spirit to share--that is inexcusable in every way.
Believe me: I learned this years ago the HARD way when I and another author got ourselves into a situation that proved to BOTH of our detriments. Here on this forum has been my recovery from that. And that saddens me more than anything to watch it happen to someone else here.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Have PM'ed mods asking for thread closure. If anyone's actually interested in the story at this point, send me a message, we'll work something out.
I'm sorry if I've upset you, but...all I've done is state and detail my distaste for a character.
If you cut away from the best character in the story to focus on the Obligatory Odioius Comic Relief, you should not be surprised when you get a negative response.
If you choose not to continue this story, my only emotion will be disappointment; that you let criticism of one character's flaws get under your skin to the point that you abandoned what was (that character aside) an interesting, well-written story, with several interesting, dynamic characters and an exciting plot. It's a damn shame.
If you don't want criticism, don't put your work in public. If you don't want analysis of the mechanics behind the story, don't put it in public. I've received (often harsh) criticism, both here and on other sites, and in real life. You're a strong writer, you just wrote one annoying character. I've written...well, suffice it to say that I have my share of old shames. I haven't given up. And you shouldn't, either.
Again, I'm disappointed and saddened. I've seen this happen before; a casual online friend got a negative review of a story--not even a harsh review, just "this scientific detail is inaccurate, it should be this"--and deleted all of xir work because of it. Please, don't go down that route. It's a damn shame and a tremendous waste.
Everybody gets bad reviews. Everybody writes bad characters. Everybody, at some point (myself included) falls in love with a bad character and keeps writing them despite the character being annoying. The appropriate response is to find why the character gets negative reactions, and either change the problem or abandon the character. I've done this; I know literally dozens of people who've done the same.
(In my case I ended up rewriting about eighteen chapters when I realized that the annoying character in question was treating his friends the exact same way he was complaining about being treated by the local bullies. I got sixteen negative reviews about that character, two of which sparked minor flame wars)
I apologize if I've offended you, but seriously...if you're that offended by my criticism, maybe online forums aren't the right environment for sharing your work. If you want to share your writing with others, expect bad reviews. They aren't a bad thing! Negative reviews should be seen as a learning experience. They show the writer what bits of a story aren't getting good responses, helping the writer become better.
So don't take my criticisms that hard. They aren't meant to be personal attacks, and if you take them that way, I'm very sorry. If I saw nothing of value in your work, I wouldn't read it; hell, you've written three of the top five best stories on this forum! Everybody swings and misses once in a while, I know that you've still got it, I can see the value in Rrueo and Tuarak. Don't get discouraged by negative reviews, just keep them in mind as you write. You're a capable writer with two great heroes and a deliciously evil villain, don't give up because I can't stand the comic relief!
Have PM'ed mods asking for thread closure. If anyone's actually interested in the story at this point, send me a message, we'll work something out.
I think, as the replies so far suggest, worffan101 is as interested in the story as anyone.
In a way, you could say he's more interested than some, as he's trying (albeit too aggressively, that I will grant you) to help fix what he sees as a flaw in an otherwise good story.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Yes, Worffan. ALL you have done is state your distate for the character. Over and over and over and OVER!! Endlessly, and in each case based on your own headcanon, completely disregarding what the AUTHOR had to say on the topic.
I know you're young yet, but if you ever want to make it as a scientist, you're going to have to stop thinking your opinion is Objective Fact and everyone else must bow down and agree or you'll type your fingers bloody haranguing us all. And this is a good place to start.
And thanks just loads for this, BTW. We're just getting to the good part, and you have to derail it again with your senseless distaste for a major character.
Yes, Worffan. ALL you have done is state your distate for the character. Over and over and over and OVER!! Endlessly, and in each case based on your own headcanon, completely disregarding what the AUTHOR had to say on the topic.
I know you're young yet, but if you ever want to make it as a scientist, you're going to have to stop thinking your opinion is Objective Fact and everyone else must bow down and agree or you'll type your fingers bloody haranguing us all. And this is a good place to start.
And thanks just loads for this, BTW. We're just getting to the good part, and you have to derail it again with your senseless distaste for a major character.
This. Shevet has explained why Pex was written the way she was, and you, Worffan, have rejected it every time.
And I don't see how this is a sacrifice, Pex is wearing an EV suit.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
Understand, the forum policy is: once closed, stays closed.
Maybe next time an author asks for things to stay on topic, stop heckling, people will keep this in mind if they want to keep reading.
There is a point that posting on a forum invites comment and not all of it will be favorable. However, we do expect that the responses will be reasonably civil and not derail the thread.
I'm not saying this happened or not. I will say that it does make a story harder to read when there are a lot of side discussions going on.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Comments
And a historical rapier is actually made for poking small, lethal holes in people.
You need something big and broad to cut off appendages. See, sword-fighting isn't a dance like Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn would have you believe. It's more of a wrestling match with pointy sticks, which is why the Roman short stabbing sword was so effective; in an age before the introduction of full field plate, a stabbing strike with a short, robust weapon was ideal for piercing primitive armors and destroying vital organs.
With the introduction of heavier plate armor, the focus of sword combat by necessity shifted towards plate's weak points at the joints; a broadsword or two-handed sword is DESIGNED to deliver a power stroke to a joint and sever an appendage. It's incredibly useful against unarmored or lightly-armored men but it relies on the wielder wearing heavy plate so that he or she doesn't get speared in mid-stroke. Of course, a good longbowman can punch through plate like cheese, as can a well-designed crossbow, but in melee combat the biggest threat to a man in a can is a broadsword to cut off his limbs.
The rapier was originally a descendant of the court sword, designed for more ceremonial and formal uses such as unarmored duels; in an unarmored duel, the focus was on piercing vital organs while appearing gentlemanly and elegant; that's not a venue where limb chopping is appropriate, and so a rapier just doesn't have the raw heft to take off a hand.
About the only movie I can think of that really does this RIGHT is "Rob Roy"--the ending scene clearly shows the proper fighting styles, for broadsword and rapier, and with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
People do get these overly doctrinaire ideas about what weapons are used for.... While the primary use of the rapier is traditionally (from the 1600s on) in thrusting styles, it is generally sharpened for either half or the full length of the blade, and that is most assuredly not just for show. (A historical rapier is not much lighter than, and every bit as sharp as, a Japanese katana - a weapon nobody has problems believing can cause an amputation. The katana is somewhat more effective as a slashing weapon, due to the curve of the blade - but "less effective than a well-made katana" is still something you do not want to get an extremity in the way of, believe me.)
I think you may be confusing "rapier" with "epee", Worffan; it's a common confusion in the modern audience. A historical rapier would be somewhat slimmer and lighter than a saber, but still an edged weapon suitable for lopping parts off someone wearing anything less defensive than chain. Now, I certainly wouldn't want to try to bring a rapier to bear against someone wielding a broadsword who actually knew how to use it, because he'd whack my lighter blade aside like a baseball bat against a golf club before removing my sword arm and then my head.
Fortunately for Oschmann, the Vaadwaur aren't carrying any swords at all, believing that in the absence of energy weapons their "primitive" projectile guns will be more than enough to overwhelm their sophisticated opponents. Pity they didn't do a little more research on those "Alphans" before arrogantly dismissing them...
That's not a weapon designed to cut off limbs, it''s designed to be used to (a) poke holes in people and (b) knock aside a similarly light weapon.
If it's an Italian side-sword, then it might be able to cut off a hand, but that's still shearing humanoid bone, a substance that can break concrete. A side-sword is only a little thinner and narrower than an arming sword, and that's about the lower limit of limb-chopping; a rapier is longer, slimmer, and thinner; still considerably larger than a foil but designed first and foremost for stabbing. That's a three-foot blade weighing in at about a kilo, definitely not hefty enough to shear a wrist in combat. Maybe under ideal conditions it could make the cut with one to three strikes, but not in combat when wielded by a relatively small person.
Toriash could probably do it, but I don't think Oschmann could unless she's pretty heavily boosted.
Katanas are usually around 2-2.5 feet and weigh closer to 1.3 kilos; shorter and heftier than a rapier. Plus, one-sided, curved weapons like the katana and the cavalry saber are designed for the slashing stroke, and have a hefty blade designed to support a chop.
A modern carbon-steel saber is lighter and stronger than an antique saber thanks to modern steel-making techniques and materials science; THAT can weigh in at a kilo and be three feet and still cleave limbs, but it's used in a long sweeping stroke to build up momentum and is fundamentally a one-sided, curved cleaving weapon, with a blade notably broader than that of a rapier.
tl;dr: I'm skeptical, even given 25th century tech.
And artistically, I think it would've been cooler to have her impale the Vaadwaur straight-up.
A well-made, well-maintained (you have to keep these things sharpened and protected against rust) Anglo-Saxon sword was literally razor-sharp - you could shave with it if you'd a mind to. What weapons of this kind could do to people - well, there is, or used to be, an online reference to the archaeological finds at Visby, where a lot of human remains from a famous battle were found in reasonably good states of preservation. We are talking about sections of skull being sheared away with startling neatness, or one chap who was found with both femurs severed by a single sword blow. (History is silent on whether he subsequently said, "'Tis but a scratch," but I like to think that he did.)
As regards impaling: even if your blade doesn't snag on bone (or have useless secondary side-blades like Rrueo's d'k tahg), the simple pressure of flesh against the flat of the blade means that it can be very hard to pull it back out once it's in. (I hasten to add that I don't have direct practical experience of this - I think the problem is referred to, though, in forensic scientist Keith Simpson's entertaining memoir Forty Years of Murder. Fun bedtime reading for all the family.) This is not necessarily a problem in the sort of formal or semi-formal one-on-one encounters that the fencing schools trained you for - if you only have one opponent, you can take as long as you like to extract your weapon from him. Oschmann, though, is no kind of fool, and doesn't fancy leaving her best weapon stuck in one Vaadwaur while there are others about, so she's attacking with slashing rather than thrusting techniques.
YES. So much win.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Unlike Shevet, I actually am writing from a position of ignorance. But given the current rate of technological progression, I don't see why that would be a problem. If a modern carbon-steel rapier can cause an amputation, it's hard to believe that a rapier made four centuries from now wouldn't be able to. And even with a dampening field, there are probably ways to, shall we say, energetically augment a blade. Chemical batteries can create a rather nasty electrical current.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Bone? Ehhhhhh...I'm just measuring weight and heft and strike angles and raising a leery eyebrow.
But to cut off a hand at the wrist, in combat, the opponent holding a gun?
I don't think that that angle is good for shearing through (NOT snapping) bones.
A heavier weapon like a cavalry saber or an axe, maybe a Klingon mek'leth, used in a sweeping stroke, that I can buy. Bat'leth, maybe an overhand chop to the chest, which is a bloody stupid way to use the thing. Rapier? I can see it slicing meat, not bone.
Bailing wire machines have a lot of force, though.
Yeah, but you'd think that the bone structure of the wrist would actually hinder a chop; cartilage is a devil to cut because it's so springy, and those bones are...eh, if you hit it at JUST the right angle it'd come clean off with any bladed weapon, but it's still considerably less effective (and less elegant
Two, part of me is laughing that in a setting with FTL travel, energy weapons, and all sorts of hand-wavium, one line about a rapier cutting off a hand is what causes the suspenders of disbelief to fail and drop the pants of imagination to the harsh floor of mundanity as I read once.
Three, to prove my status as a hypocrite, I looked around, and depending on what kind of rapier was being used, I'd have to give the idea of a rapier cutting off a hand a qualified maybe. Strangely I couldn't find someone testing the idea, but I did find this video of some water filled bottle destruction.
Video here.
Looking some more, the general consensus seems to be most rapiers are more thrusting weapons that cutting, but depending on the specific type they can cut (see the above video) and no one seems to be willing to say cutting off a hand with a rapier couldn't be done.
Nouveau riche LTS member
Also, I think that an impaling strike would've looked a lot cooler.
Seriously seconded, and a better summing up than mine.
I do like watching great captains inspire great crews.
Related to the sword issue: Have we gotten Oschmann's back story or do we know her simply as a renegade? I miss things, sometimes.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Pretty much all of this was what I was going to say. It's a future rapier. Advanced construction and molecular edges and whatnot. Science!
Really it doesn't matter. Rrueo can score steel and her officer can cut off hands. These are things that have happened. It might be better to ask yourself why Oschmann uses a rapier. Beyond being a human weapon, what is it is telling us about the character.
Also, learned something new today. The blade of a rapier is referred to in musical terms. This, I think is why bards and rapiers are so closely associated in fantasy. That's neat.
That actually makes a lot more sense than it seems at first sight. If it's just handwavium, i.e. you don't explain exactly what it is you're doing, you can do anything you like; it's the points where the story touches on reality that have to be solid and accurate, because then it's possible to tell. Like that recent Doctor Who episode about the Moon, that made everyone so cross. You can talk as long as you like about helicon energy and cyborgs moving out of phase with reality and so on, and none dares answer, nay; but if you claim that an egg suspended in a vacuum would gain mass as it develops, everyone will know you're talking rubbish.
But, if points like that come off right, they're 100% worth it, for the same reason really: they give the reader something they can get a grip on, and think "Will they be able to do it?", whereas if it's pure handwavium, the answer to that question is just "Dunno, they will be if the author feels like it I suppose". I'm thinking about the sand and the leaf in that heist chapter. That just nailed the whole sequence into place, for me.
As for the actual sword question, so, what it boils down to is that a rapier would be sharp enough but without the weight of a heavy sword behind the blow, there wouldn't be enough force? Well, I can't see how advanced technology could make the sword exert any more force, but as blackblackwyrm says it could be extremely sharp, and off the top of my head I'd have thought that would decrease the force required - same force on a smaller area equals more pressure. In any case, though, the whole question assumes that Oschmann herself is a standard model - which we have no particular reason to think is the case. The Federation seems to look a bit sideways at any kind of physical augmentation, but she's not in the Federation, is she?
Great stuff, Shevet - I haven't much of a stomach for fight scenes and I still enjoyed that, it's just so tightly put together, you can visualise exactly what Rrueo's trying to do at every moment and bite your nails wondering if she'll pull it off!
"Three can keep a secret if but two of them are dead," Hal Welti quotes at me in lugubrious tones.
And seventy-odd stood no chance at all. Whoever's earwigging Delta Command communications is listening out for Hazari chatter too, and this gathering must have shown up on their radar. Dunno how much they actually know, but it was enough to pass on to the Vaadwaur.
And the Hazari planetoid is uncomfortably close to an uncharted Underspace exit, it turns out. So, when the Vaadwaur ship popped out of that, with its damping-field satellite in tow, we had only a couple of minutes to respond - and we hadn't even got within weapons range when the satellite went live, and our power systems went dead. The Hazari frigates picketing the planetoid, and the Timor, were caught in the field too, and are now drifting uselessly in elliptical orbits. Like us.
Damn it. I hate being useless.
We're so useless the Vaadwaur didn't even bother to kill us. The interdictor cruiser is hanging in high orbit, just far enough on the other side of the satellite that it's not caught in the damping field. The huge curving antennae on that satellite make the field highly directional - it engulfs the planetoid and the near orbitals, but the Vaadwaur ship can stay within a few kilometres on the back side of it, monitoring it and feeding it energy. And monitoring the other satellite assembly, too. The one that's the other half of a really pretty neat orbital siege package....
Directed energy weapons will diffuse to uselessness in the damping field; torpedoes will lose motive power and control. But the railgun, squatting out by the Vaadwaur cruiser like a malignant stinging insect, is delivering pure kinetic projectiles, chunks of meteoritic nickel-iron most likely, simple slugs that cross space to the planetoid in seconds, and are meticulously pounding the Hazari station into wreckage.
Sound doesn't travel through space. It's just my imagination that's adding the ka-THUMP every time that railgun fires.
"We got any sort of capabilities yet?" I ask. I should know better, but I ask anyway.
"Main power is out, auxiliary is fluctuating," Goyar reports. "Computer core keeps going into power-save mode. I can keep life support going, but generating countermeasures -" He shakes his head.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit," I mutter. "The Vaadwaur got their shuttles through the damping field -"
"They went through on thrusters only," says Ajbit. "Besides, they know the frequencies of the field... they can tune out at least some of the effect. Pex, face facts, there's nothing we can do. I know you want to play the angles, to find some way, but it just isn't going to work."
"Those Vaadwaur troop shuttles were antiques," I mutter, "but we're an antique, too, practically - Wait." Something's glimmering in the back of my mind. "What did you say just then?"
"I said, there's nothing we can do." Ajbit is sounding exasperated.
"After that." The thought coalesces in my mind. I jump up out of the command chair. "Come on."
Ajbit shakes her head. "Where to?"
"Shuttle bay." I look around. Goyar needs to stay at engineering, to keep life support online. I need one science officer at least trying to crack this damn field, so that leaves Voesyy out - Hal is versatile, he can help them - "Veb, you and Ajbit with me."
The Pakled smiles. "We make the shuttle go?"
"That's the plan. Thrusters only, but the shuttle's an antique like the Vaadwaur, it's got decent speed and manoeuvre capacity on thrusters, right?"
"And no shields or weapons," Ajbit points out.
"Won't need 'em. Shuttle doesn't have an EPS grid either, so no power fluctuations, so its computer will work." I head for the bridge doors. "Gonna need the computer. Seriously, guys, I've got an idea here."
Vebanillo follows with alacrity. Ajbit follows with a frown, but she follows, which is all I could ask. We work the hydraulics on the door.
We think of ships like the Ostankino as Kazon heavy raiders, but in fact they were designed, and most of them built, by a species called the Trabe, who kept the Kazon as sort of pets. Worked out about as well for them as you might have expected. Point is, though, the ships they built for their pets are robust, simple, and largely idiot-proof, which they kinda had to be, because they were crewed by idiots. A heavy raider in a good state of maintenance - which the Ostankino is, despite all the crud on the main viewscreen - is a pretty effective ship, really. And it is simple and durable, so if things go wrong, there is always a way around it. Power is being diverted from trivia like the sliding doors, but we can hand-crank 'em with the hydraulics. The same goes for the doors of the small shuttle bay, though they'll need some hard cranking. Which is what Ajbit and Veb are here for.
It doesn't take long to reach the shuttle bay. But it's long enough for another ka-THUMP from that railgun, more than one in fact. I don't want to think about what must be happening inside the Hazari station. I rummage in a locker, drag out an EV suit, and start putting it on.
"Pex," Ajbit says, "what exactly is the plan here?"
"Playing the angles, like you said. That railgun is banging away in a predictable pattern, and we can use that."
"Until they change it," says Ajbit.
"They won't. They can't. Their own troops are down there, comms are gonna be sketchy at best, they must know the schedule so they can be somewhere the railgun rounds aren't coming down." Even so, it's a hell of a risky plan, cavalier with the lives of their own soldiers as well as the civilians on the station. Typically Vaadwaur, in fact. I shrug into the EV suit. "I'm taking the shuttle out, and I'm gonna break that pattern for them."
"And likely the shuttle too," Ajbit points out.
"Eggs, omelettes, whatever. C'mon, I need to be onboard." Veb has cranked the main bay doors open already, bless her. The three of us work on extending the internal docking tube that latches onto the shuttle's hatch. Once it's locked, I clamber through. Ajbit starts to follow.
"No need," I say. "Don't need a tailgunner, or an engineer, or a radar operator. This'll only take one of us, believe me."
Ajbit stops. She looks at me very hard indeed. "I hope to hell you know what you're doing, Pex," she says.
"I am on this," I assure her, and I duck through the hatch before she can come up with a comeback. I settle myself in the pilot seat of the shuttlepod, put my suit's gloves and helmet on the deck beside me. "OK. Pull the docking tube and release the main latches," I say into the comms. Standard wiring, no EPS grid, still works. Antique tech, gotta love it sometimes.
There are clunks and bangs against the hull. I turn around and fiddle with the comms board. "Got a laser link going," I say. "Oh, yeah, testing, testing, come in Ostankino, all that."
"Receiving you," says Ajbit's voice. The laser link will degrade in the damping field, but it should hold up long enough. I can't take too long about this anyway, entirely too many ka-THUMPs have already gone by. "Main latches retracted, shuttle is clear for exit."
"OK, then." I hit the controls. The main drive is dead, but the thrusters work just fine. Reaction mass hisses through the RCS arrays, and through the forward viewport I see the wall of the docking bay slide away, revealing the stars and the round bulk of the planetoid beyond. I punch the control board again, and the shuttle moves forwards and down, away from the ship.
Got to be sparing of that reaction mass.... I turn to the other side of the cockpit, and start banging the parameters of the problem into the shuttle's computer.
It's a simple one, really, in concept at least. In practice, it needs precise calculation, way more precise than I or any organic being can muster - but, hey, that's why we have computers. Maybe Unity should be here instead of me -
I think that, and then I think, no. My crazy idea, my risk. Them's the rules.
"What exactly are you doing?" Ajbit's voice asks.
"Like you said. Playing the angles. Those domes on the surface, over the docking bays, they're armoured, right?" And we have specs on that Hazari armour. We have specs on a whole bunch of things we probably shouldn't have, that's kinda the point of us.
"Not hard enough. The railgun slugs are punching straight through."
"'cause they're coming straight in," I say absently, as I study the computer simulation. It is possible. Chancy, but possible. My mouth goes dry as I realize I'm actually gonna have to do this. "Give one a nudge, make it hit at an angle, it'll glance off, right?"
"You can't nudge a railgun slug with the shuttle!"
"Well," I say, "I reckon I can't nudge more than one railgun slug with the shuttle, but one might be enough, right? It glances off, it's got to go somewhere."
"You're trying to set up controlled ricochets to -?"
"Simple problem in trajectories, right? We know all the factors." And the computer has them laid out, glowing lines describing the vectors I need - I start checking the mass factors, though I already know what they'll say.
"You're insane. There's always an error factor, and even the slightest error -"
"Not at this close range. That satellite's antennae are big." I set the automated sequence into the navigation board. The shuttle's computer is pretty stupid. Good enough to calculate the angles, not quite good enough to realize it's committing suicide. Poor computer.
The seat kicks against my spine as the main thrusters fire. The shuttle turns, then straightens out again.
"If they realise what you're up to, one burst from that cruiser -"
"Will fade out in the damping field, and a torpedo won't reach me in time. Besides, they'll just think like you, they'll reckon I'm crazy and it won't work."
Ajbit is silent for a moment. Outside, everything looks deceptively still. I'm not moving anywhere near fast enough for apparent star motion, and I can't see the planetoid from this angle, and everything else is just a bright dot in space.
"OK," she says, "it's worth a try. But I don't know how we're going to recover you if it doesn't work."
"Well, that's my problem, right?" I say as airily as I can. I've set up a countdown, and the numbers are already getting too small for my liking.
"You'll need to eject inside the next minute," says Ajbit.
"Yeah," I say. I twist around far enough to reach the engineering console, and I make all the adjustments I can.
"Seriously. If you don't eject right now, you'll be in the danger radius if - when - the shuttle blows."
"Um, yeah, about that," I say. I slip on the suit's gloves and seal them, pick up the helmet and push it into place. The suit's comms take over seamlessly. "See, this kinda depends on hitting the slug with all the mass I've got available. Like, all the mass. Once I've expended the reaction mass to get to the intersection point, well -" I shrug. "Can't lose any more. Them's the breaks."
"Pex -!"
"Relax. I've dumped everything into the inertial dampers, and I'm turning my suit's fields up to max, and anyway it'll be a glancing blow, right? See you on the flip side. Probably. If not, can you start the paperwork to get a new shuttle, like, now? Quicker the better, you know what Logistics Bureau is like out here."
The stars are still, the sky is motionless. But somewhere up above me, the railgun is proceeding on its remorseless pre-programmed sequence, and my countdown is in its dying instants, and the railgun has already gone ka-
The THUMP hits me everywhere at once, a jolt that goes right through every molecule of me in an instant of pressure that transcends pain. It's followed by a moment of absolute nothing, silence, blackness and free fall. Perhaps I'm dead. It'd make sense.
Then blurry vision returns, and with it a physical sensation, a sort of solid all-over ache as if my whole body's been turned to pain. Stars. I see stars, mostly not inside my head. They are swirling and turning, and I see a lot of them through the viewport -
No. Not through the viewport. The entire nose of the shuttle is gone, I'm looking at naked space. I look down a little, and for a brief moment spot the control console. Then it breaks free, torn loose by inertial forces, whirling off into space.
The shuttle is coming apart. Only to be expected. I push against the arms of the pilot's seat, and the pain gets an awful lot worse, but I lever myself up and drop gracelessly forwards and out through the big hole where the front of the shuttle was. I reach my wrist control with what feels like the last of my strength, and touch the emergency button. The suit's thrusters go into "bug out" mode, firing, pushing me in any direction so long as it's away. That hurts, too, rather a lot.
At some point, somewhere behind me, the wreck of the shuttle blows up. Dimly, I feel a waft of expanding gases push into me, and a couple of glancing blows from more solid debris. Something knocks the heel of one boot, hard, and I start spinning. Thrusters are drained. So am I. No way to stop....
I hang there, revolving in the heavens. The planetoid, some distance away, spins past me. I can't see if there are any fresh impact scars on the armoured domes. I hope there are. And they're on the ones I aimed for....
Simple physics. Well, simple if you've got a computer to do the sums. The railgun slug took a glancing hit from the shuttle, and that made it glance off one dome, then ricochet off another - and then off into the depths of space. Only, if the computer and I got it right, paying one last call on the Vaadwaur's damping satellite.
Something blasts into my ears. That hurts, too. Let's face it, everything hurts. But this hurty thing is a voice, and after a little while I work out what it's saying.
" - field is down, we have main power online! Timor is moving to engagement range with the Vaadwaur! Pex, we're moving to assist just as soon as we've recovered you, don't move! Pex, respond, please!"
"Don' worry," I mumble into the suit's mic. "Tol' you I'd see you on th' flip side, right? Don' worry... not goin' anywhere...."
Actually, I'm going plenty of places, spinning on some random course above the planetoid, a course I can't even make a vague guess at. There's nothing I can do about that, though. After a while, the revolving starscape starts to make me nauseous, so I close my eyes.
Nice that she's a hypocrite again; her last couple of idiot plans risked a lot more than just her.
Well-written and -paced as usual, but I doubt that a Duntless will last more than a few seconds against a Vaadwaur interdictor cruiser; I've seen Scimitars have trouble with those, and a Duntless is a bit of glass without the sci power to play space mage and not enough tac power to sustain damage.
The only way M'eioi's taking Tuarak's ship down without Rrueo's help is by ramming it. I mean, this is taking a Duntless up against a Vaad BC in a PVP match; no contest, the Vaad's going to win.
Now the QIb is a lethally powerful ship; think fleet k'tinga but better. With Rrueo's help, Tuarak's screwed.
While I chose not to read it closely, you did not deserve the treatment you got. No author does, especially those who clearly put a great deal of time and effort into their work as you do.
The way I looked at it was this. That Delta Quadrant stories aren't so much my cup of tea is a personal problem. It's not the author's fault. And it's not my place to dump on another author just because my preferences don't align.
I realize closure is coming and I also want to make clear that I will not be engaging anyone in debate or further discussion here. But it needs to be said and I feel it needs to be said publicly as an example for all of us, including myself, to take to heart: how we treat each other has a REAL impact behind the screen. And haranguing another author to death, attempting to rewrite their story in one's own image, and breaking their spirit to share--that is inexcusable in every way.
Believe me: I learned this years ago the HARD way when I and another author got ourselves into a situation that proved to BOTH of our detriments. Here on this forum has been my recovery from that. And that saddens me more than anything to watch it happen to someone else here.
Not all fandom is good or desirable fandom.
And that's the way it is.
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If you cut away from the best character in the story to focus on the Obligatory Odioius Comic Relief, you should not be surprised when you get a negative response.
If you choose not to continue this story, my only emotion will be disappointment; that you let criticism of one character's flaws get under your skin to the point that you abandoned what was (that character aside) an interesting, well-written story, with several interesting, dynamic characters and an exciting plot. It's a damn shame.
If you don't want criticism, don't put your work in public. If you don't want analysis of the mechanics behind the story, don't put it in public. I've received (often harsh) criticism, both here and on other sites, and in real life. You're a strong writer, you just wrote one annoying character. I've written...well, suffice it to say that I have my share of old shames. I haven't given up. And you shouldn't, either.
Again, I'm disappointed and saddened. I've seen this happen before; a casual online friend got a negative review of a story--not even a harsh review, just "this scientific detail is inaccurate, it should be this"--and deleted all of xir work because of it. Please, don't go down that route. It's a damn shame and a tremendous waste.
Everybody gets bad reviews. Everybody writes bad characters. Everybody, at some point (myself included) falls in love with a bad character and keeps writing them despite the character being annoying. The appropriate response is to find why the character gets negative reactions, and either change the problem or abandon the character. I've done this; I know literally dozens of people who've done the same.
(In my case I ended up rewriting about eighteen chapters when I realized that the annoying character in question was treating his friends the exact same way he was complaining about being treated by the local bullies. I got sixteen negative reviews about that character, two of which sparked minor flame wars)
I apologize if I've offended you, but seriously...if you're that offended by my criticism, maybe online forums aren't the right environment for sharing your work. If you want to share your writing with others, expect bad reviews. They aren't a bad thing! Negative reviews should be seen as a learning experience. They show the writer what bits of a story aren't getting good responses, helping the writer become better.
So don't take my criticisms that hard. They aren't meant to be personal attacks, and if you take them that way, I'm very sorry. If I saw nothing of value in your work, I wouldn't read it; hell, you've written three of the top five best stories on this forum! Everybody swings and misses once in a while, I know that you've still got it, I can see the value in Rrueo and Tuarak. Don't get discouraged by negative reviews, just keep them in mind as you write. You're a capable writer with two great heroes and a deliciously evil villain, don't give up because I can't stand the comic relief!
I haven't been following this story, but I'm really sorry that you've been pushed to the point where you've felt this is necessary
I think, as the replies so far suggest, worffan101 is as interested in the story as anyone.
In a way, you could say he's more interested than some, as he's trying (albeit too aggressively, that I will grant you) to help fix what he sees as a flaw in an otherwise good story.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Sorry again for my role in the last argument.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
I know you're young yet, but if you ever want to make it as a scientist, you're going to have to stop thinking your opinion is Objective Fact and everyone else must bow down and agree or you'll type your fingers bloody haranguing us all. And this is a good place to start.
And thanks just loads for this, BTW. We're just getting to the good part, and you have to derail it again with your senseless distaste for a major character.
GOOD LORD.
...okay, gonna keep this thread in mind when I finally get clearance from PWE to start making my own threads and I start posting my own story.
Shame this story is about to end. It's actually pretty enjoyable thus far.
(Anyone know how long the time is between "make an account" and "can make your own threads" is, by the way?)
This. Shevet has explained why Pex was written the way she was, and you, Worffan, have rejected it every time.
And I don't see how this is a sacrifice, Pex is wearing an EV suit.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Understand, the forum policy is: once closed, stays closed.
Maybe next time an author asks for things to stay on topic, stop heckling, people will keep this in mind if they want to keep reading.
There is a point that posting on a forum invites comment and not all of it will be favorable. However, we do expect that the responses will be reasonably civil and not derail the thread.
I'm not saying this happened or not. I will say that it does make a story harder to read when there are a lot of side discussions going on.
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