so, where is the Duke, anyway? (part CLVI)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part CLV.)

"I'm in front of something stone..." said Swift, in a concerned voice.

Emilly floated in the water just offshore, watching the wreckage. "Yeah," she said. "Near Steam."

"With waving tentacles..."

Emilly blinked. "Oh, no, that's supposed to be there."

"What?" Swift asked, after a long pause.

Emilly dove back underwater, swimming to where the underwater temple used to be. She lands neatly on the sand beside Swift, peering into the well of writhing green flesh.

"Maybe I should have put up a sign? 'Harmless'? Or, at least--'Contained'?"

Swift just stared at her, then shook his head, and swam back to the gunship.

"We can't get close enough to them," said Laurence.

"I got a heat grenade type shell--try that?" asked Briggs.

"Try it!" said Justine.

Emilly swam closer, trying to edge around the remains of the ship still at the crash site.

"I've got eyes on--" Justine said. "They're firing on something!"

Emilly groaned, gouting blood into the dark waters, midsection charred. She was very, very glad she was no longer carrying the heirs.

"Me," she finally whispered, slowly swimming away, returning to the TG tram, summoning a shuttle to take her to Tannhauser Gate station. "I got too close. That...is a very big gun..."

"That shell hit!" crowed Justine.

"Damn things can repair themselves too," said Laurence.

"They--WHAT?" yelped the Duchess.

"Direct hit!" said Laurence. "One hostile down."

"[Sh*t]," said Justine. "There's one left."

"This is Gearhaven Actual," Hiro said for the third time. "Return to Tannhauser Gate. Mission scrubbed. New data to be reviewed in second mission briefing."



"Briggs, can you pick us up and get us back to the station?" asked Justine.

"Yes," he said. "Packing up now."

"Laurence, stay with me. We're waiting for extraction. Tom, you're awfully close to the crash site. Are you taking fire from the one remaining hostile?"

"On board the ship," said Swift.

As Justine and Laurence boarded, Laurence checked Justine over for wounds. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I think I'm okay," she said, holstering her blaster. "Tannhauser Command to Duchess Emilly, come in?"

Emilly didn't answer, shifting on her way up to Tannhauser, picking a form mostly at random--a pale bunny. She felt rather helpless for this fight, maybe that was why. She made her way to the command deck. Hiro was peering intently at the screen when she arrived.

"So what is our situation?" Justine asked. "We eliminated three of the four hostiles. There are still tentacle monsters. But most importantly, TOTS appears to have moved."

"Right," Emilly said, slumping into a chair. Hiro looked over with concern.

"As far as I know, the Duchess is the only one who actually saw the ship move and knows where it is."

Emilly nodded at Justine's words, even though Justine couldn't see the motion. "I don’t think the cargo's on board anymore..."

"No?"

"No, I think it's still at the crash site."

"Let's go to the briefing room. If anyone has visual recordings of the crash site, please share them with me."

Justine, back on the station, took the lift to deck 02. "Okay, let's get what we've got up on the screen here."

"This is what's left at the crash site," she said, pointing out the forward section of the ship, the various threats around it, and the--whatever it was--that had slid partially into a deep furrow behind the ship.

"One hostile, some interdimensional incursion, and...one guardian monster."

Emilly leaned forward, peering at the image. "Hiro, no," she said softly.

Hiro looked over at her, shaking his head. She sighed and sat back in the chair.

"The cargo is a weaponized eldritch warhead," Hiro said.

Justine frowned. "I...see."

"We bought it from an instance of Jack Parsons...We do need it back on the station before anyone--the Federation, the UAP, et cetera...get it."

"Oh, we get it," Justine said darkly. "It's still being guarded by one remaining hostile. We've learned that if we fire at the hostiles enough, they stop firing back briefly. We might be able to get past it and retrieve the cargo, and get back out."

"What happened to the others?" he asked. "Did you kill them?"

Justine nodded. "Chief Briggs was able to take them out with heavy artillery, before he ran out of shells. A launched heat grenade took out the last one we were able to destroy."

Justine looked down at the control panel. "Hold on...I've got a shot of the new location of TOTS." She threw up the image of the collection of scrap metal.

"And that, friends and neighbors, is where the ship ended up," Emilly said.

"That is close to GH," Hiro said. "Is the site secured?"

"It's IN Gearhaven," Emilly retorted. "Or at the very least, just edging into the Dark Sea, but on land. If you were standing at that center lithon, Hiro, and walked left? You'd be at Steam."

Justine sighed. "Well, it appears the core is no longer on fire, at least."

"No, but...it fractured," Emilly said.

"So we can worry about that later," Justine said.

"Any news on the survivor?" Laurence asked.

Emilly shook her head. "Never got close enough to the ship. Kept getting shot."

"Justine..." Hiro began. Justine startled as all the station klaxons started screaming.

"STAN! What is that??"

STAN turned the screen black, before words scrolled up:

STAN: Eldritch anomaly detected.

An image appeared on the screen. Emilly sat up in the chair. "Wait! I saw one of those! I pointed that out to Briggs when we were going to the shuttle!" She turned to Hiro. "You don't have ANOTHER of those alien--things--aboard still, do you??" she asked frantically.

"I doubt it," Hiro said.

"The fact that you're not sure fills me with dread."

"STAN, bring all station defenses online!" Justine cried out, tapping the control panel. The picture changed to something desaturated and slightly grainy.



"Please tell me this isn't a live feed," said Laurence.

"I think it is," replied Justine. "STAN? What is going on?" She rushed to a separate terminal, pulling up data from the scanners.

STAN: All defensive systems online.

"Okay, so...We have a lost weapon guarded by hostiles in the Dark Sea," the Duke said slowly. "A moving crash site close to the Mansion...We have--whatever--happened...last night...and now that." He pointed at the screen.

Justine looked puzzled. "There's nothing on the scanners." She looked up. "Laurence, can you see anything?"

Emilly looked over her shoulder. "That's not possible."

"It is if something is jamming us," Justine said.

"Are we being jammed?" Hiro asked.

Justine ran a frequency modulation bypass filter on the scanners. Laurence looked over her shoulder.

"What the hell are they?" he asked.

Emilly shrugged. "I don't know."

"I'm heading to Command Ops," Hiro said, moving at speed out of the room. Everyone else piled out after him, running to the gunship again. Justine stumbled over to the copilot seat, strapping in in a hurry.

"Shields up!" Hiro said. "Reactors online!"

"I see them! West side of the station," Justine said. "Behind the cathedral. Chief, can you take us there?"

Briggs flew around the station, zeroing in the on the targets in the gunship.

Emilly stood, starting to move towards the door, and paused. She looked down, seeing pinpricks of red slowly blooming on her white dress. She tapped her comm, not sure if it was still on.

"Guys...I don't think...the patch work held..."

There was screaming over the comms, then--

"Briggs? BRIGGS!" yelled Justine.



Emilly fell to her knees, holding her stomach. She tried to stagger to her feet, and collapsed. Everything...went...dark.

(Continued in part CLVII.)

so, where is the Duke, anyway? (part CLV)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part CLIV.)



Just as Briggs reported he had exhausted his supply of shells, the radio crackled to life. It was Hiro. "This is Gearhaven Actual; Justine, do you copy?"

"Roger, Gearhaven Actual. This is Commander Johndory."

The comms lit up with cross-chatter.

"Under heavy fire!" yelled Laurence.

"All right, I can get about fifty meters from the crash site--" the Duchess chimed in.



"We've got some sort of--hellmouth--open in the center of the Dark Sea," said Justine, "and there's--something--coming out--"

"WHAT?" yelped Emilly.

Justine swerved the Stingray away from the crash site, dodging laser blasts. She turned to look at the jumpseat behind her. "Laurence! Are you all right back there?"

There was a groan over the comms. "Hit again," said the Duchess.

"Briggs? Swift? Report?" said Justine.

Laurence took off his mask, breathing heavily. "Feeling pretty lightheaded--how are you holding up, Justine?"



"This is Gearhaven Actual. Justine! Do you copy?" said the Duke.

"Standing by artillery set-up," said Briggs. "But I'm seeing some straight sights--"

"I'm all right," Justine said. "Heading for Briggs. Swift, keep outside a fifty meter perimeter from the crash site."

The Stingray was hit on the next pass. Justine struggled with the controls. Between gritted teeth she spat out "She...isn't...responding..."



"It's moving again!" yelled Emilly. She swam up, following the pieces of the mad ship. It fetched up against land again, this time--just down the hill from Steam towers. Great.

Justine regained control of the little flyer, sliding her right along the land line between the Dark Sea and...the other Dark Sea. "This is going great."

"Return to Tannhauser Gate," said Hiro.



"I'm sorry, GH Actual? Please repeat last command?" Justine asked.

"Do you have a visual on the debris field of the Bad Mofo?"

"Not at the moment, returning there now."

"Duchess...did you say the ship is flying?"

"Not anymore," she said mournfully, staring at the pile of rubble next to the TG tram.

(Continued in part CLVI.)

so, where is the Duke, anyway? (part CLIV)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part CLIII.)

Justine and Laurence swooped in on the crash site in the Mk 1 Stingray two-seater. She was quick and maneuverable, but the guns are not live, so they were basically helpless sitting ducks at this point. They deployed all sensors and began taking data.

"We're taking fire!" said Justine, turning away from the crash site.

"I have a visual on a possible survivor," reported Laurence.

"I'm going to take us in a bit closer, Laurence. Stay on those scanners."



Meanwhile, Emilly dove through the dark water, quickly growing gills to breathe. She saw part of the ship tumbling in the distance, and a fixed part straight ahead. She swam towards it, landing on the black sea bottom--and felt lasers cutting through the water near her.



She ran in the other direction, towards the moving part of the ship.



Justine and Laurence flew around the crash site, taking fire repeatedly. On each pass they relayed coordinates back to Briggs. On the sea floor, Tom Swift kept an eye on the crash site, reporting back the results of the artillery bombardment.



Meanwhile, Emilly soon found herself stranded in shadow. It wasn't called the Dark Sea for nothing, but she found herself resenting the dark sands and dark waters for the first time. It made it nearly impossible to see. She thought the ship was ahead of her--and then it was, tumbling over her and trapping her inside. They rolled unevenly along until it fetched up against something and stopped.



Now where were they?

She swam out of the cargo bay she'd been trapped in, trying to get her bearings. If they were still in the Dark Sea, and not in Tannhauser--or even Krakenstorm--she'd be surprised.



She relayed her location over the comms, and then swam back to the crash site.

"HOLY--" she yelped as another laser shot past her--or maybe it hit, as the burning line of pain on her side helpfully informed her. "Those things are long range!"

(Continued in part CLV.)

so, where is the Duke, anyway? (part CLIII)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part CLII.)

Eventually, they all had something that fit, at least save the Duchess. Who frowned at the round vintage pistol she held. She wasn't even sure it would fire underwater.



Briggs looked puzzled. She shrugged. "The one gun I KNOW I have is fairly useless--Derringer-sized palm pistol. But I have been rated to carry it."

Briggs looked dubious. She didn't blame him.



"Duchess, can you keep an eye on the scanners, please? Take us in, Briggs."



Emilly pulled out her pad, watching. "Readings are...confusing. I can pick out the ship parts. I think. But there's...organics down there? I thought Hiro said the crew was rescued?"

Justine mused, "The organics could be the hostiles, or the...well, it could be the cargo."

Laurence asked, "What exactly were they transporting down there?"

"We don't know," answered Emilly. "The cargo was classified."



Laurence offered, "So what if the threat and the cargo turn out to be the same thing? God only knows what they were transporting. What are our rules of engagement if that does turn out to be the case?"

"Our mission is to neutralize the hostiles and retrieve the cargo," Justine replied, somewhat unhelpfully.

"Understood."

STAN's vaguely mechanical voice came over the gunship's speakers. "Additional intel and new secondary objective. There appears to be one survivor still on the ship. Passenger was not on manifest."

Emilly rolled her eyes again. "Oh, great."



"Hold on, here we go!" And with that, the Varyag dove beneath the waves. The crash site was barely visible through the murky waters of Dark Sea when the ship came under fire. "Retreat, retreat! What now?"

"Forget the guns, we need someone with a nuke," offered the Duchess.

John replied grimly, "I got artillery."

"Is the Prometheus in the area?" Emilly asked.

"Yeah, that one," said the Chief. "Ask Hiro, it's got big orbital cannons on it."

Justine nodded. "Okay, Briggs, head to Gearhaven and set up the artillery. Laurence and I will get you coordinates."

Emilly looked up from the scanners, alarmed. "We have bigger problems. TOTS is moving."

A mechanical voice came from her pad. "Core Computer: Ten seconds to core failure. Core Computer: Nine..."

"Damn it, ship, slow down!" cried Emilly. She unbuckled and flung herself into the cargo hold, opening the ramp, following the out of control remnants of TOTS.

(Continued in part CLIV.)

and I'll rise to every occasion (part CLII)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part CLI.)

The Duchess stepped out of the shuttle, onto the warded landing platform. She stepped through the iris, waiting impatiently for the outer airlock door to fully seal and vent before she proceeded forward. Through the several layers of scan now implemented, but finally she reached the other side, and made her way to the command deck.



"Welcome, Duchess!" Justine said, waving from her chair.

"Thanks!"

"Affirmative, sir," Laurence said, murmuring into his comm on a private channel. Then he looked up. "This ship is quite impressive, does she have a name?"

Emilly looked at Justine. They both blinked.

"This is Tannhauser Gate station, Laurence," Justine finally said. "We're in orbit around a wormhole."

"Ah. Must be the dry air in the oxygen tanks making my head go funny."

Emilly blinked again, noting Laurence's rebreather firmly in place, even on the recirculated oxygen of the station. "Possible," she finally said. "Though the Rift can cause some odd effects on its own. That does worry me."

Laurence looked at her. "What kind of effects?"

"From the Rift? Time shifts, things moving places, quantum flares from the event horizon." She smiled at him. The usual, she said silently.

"Briggs!" called out Justine, watching him walk onto the command deck. "Damn, I am so glad to see YOU."

They made their way to seats, watching the large screen.



Justine--Commander Johndory, Emilly corrected herself, smiling, that was a rank worthy of remembering--looked over the team as they all wandered in. Lieutenant Laurence Scout, Chief John Briggs, Tom Swift, and the Duchess all made their way to seats. Ready to attempt retrieval of the cargo lost in the crash of TOTS.

"STAN," Justine said, turning to the screen,"send all available data on the crash site to the briefing room screen."

She waited for them to load before continuing. "These are the pics of the crash site. We still don't know exactly what the classified cargo was. The Duke did not choose to divulge that. But we should know it when we see it. Apparently we aren't the only people trying to retrieve it, which is why we're in a hurry. As the Duchess said, there's something hostile guarding the crash site. We're going to go down in Chief Briggs' Varyag gunship. It's rated for space, air and water, and there's room for all of us, and the cargo. The Chief is gonna pilot us, I'll be in the co-pilot jumpseat. When we get there we'll approach the site with caution, get a feel for the resistance and come up with a plan for getting through it. Okay?"

She was met with nods all around. "Okay, let's do this."

"Welcome, Duchess!" Justine said, waving from her chair.

Justine touched a button on the panel in front of her chair. "This image was captured as we fled the wreck of the TOTS freighter." She looked up. "Welcome, Tom Swift! Please, introduce yourselves while I take care of some things." She turned her attention to the panel again.

Laurence lowered Sebastian off his shoulder, leaving him in the station. "Mind things until we get back."

"Mrowr."

Emilly smiled at the small cat sitting, seemingly at attention, on the command deck.

"What are the projectiles?" asked Laurence. "Plasma? Some sort of energy-based, or materialistic?"

Briggs considered. "That the hostiles are using? That is still unclear. We need to do some recon, but keep enough distance that we don't take fire."

Justine nodded. "Great! Let's head up to level 01 and hit the armory before we get into the shuttle."



As they made their way to the lift, Laurance asked, "Isn't that going to be a problem? Oxygen we have very little of."

"Well, it is under seventy meters of water," said Justine. "So everyone is going to need rebreathers."

"Everyone but the Duchess," Emilly said. Laurence's expression was hard to make out through the thick goggles and the leather mask he wore, but she thought he looked puzzled. She shrugged. "I have that under control."

Zack met them when they were getting off on deck 01.

"You guys better be careful--I won't be able to intervene until at least Sunday evening," Zack said.

"Yikes," Justine murmured. "Good point, Zack. Not good attempting this without our medic on hand."

They made their way to the armory. Justine rummaged through the cupboards of the armory and loaded herself up with everything she found. "Hmm," she said, bending down. "What's this?"

Emilly picked up a gun dubiously. She wasn't big on shooting anything. At least, not with guns. It came with an eye-covering screen, and she clicked it on, pointing the gun at the target and focusing in. She endded up focusing too hard, and her point of view shot through the station, where there was a green-black...Something...hovering in the dark.

No, I'm not going to think about that right now.

She put the gun down and sighed, trying to find something she could use. Briggs frowned at her. She shrugged.

"I'm not the gun person. I'm generally the run away screaming person."

(Continued in part CLIII.)

so, where is the Duke, anyway? (part CLI)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part CL.)

Emilly was carefully layering extracted samples into a gas spectrometer in the fringe lab when the comm pinged. Zack's cheerfully aggrieved voice came over the wire.

"Why is it always when I am away that I miss all the fun?" He chuckles to himself, and she grins.



"Oh, I don't think the crash counted as fun!" she commented, and heard Justine's voice on the line.

"Well, it was exciting!"

Emilly snorted, remembering a report she'd read earlier, where their court bard had gotten wedged in a fold of the evac pod waiting for the shuttle. "Especially for Rusty," she said, "who nearly smothered in sand!"

She heard Zack chuckle. "You're not helping."

Justine tsked. "Not helping is kind of my thing!"

"Mm," said the Duchess, carefully capping the glass tube and setting it to extract. "So, I had another reason to check into that area. For some reason, we have a 'ghost' of the Dark Sea. It's not ours, we're trying to figure out what's happening."

"What?"

"I decided to swim down to check the division line, to see if it was just a map ghost, or if the land actually existed? I got shot at."



Silence on the comm. The Duchess tilted her head up, considering.

"So...something is down there," she finally said.



"Argh," said Zack softly. "Ghosts are in the field of--shamanism. Not my specialty."

There was another pause, then the soft tone that announced official communication from the court. It was Justine's voice.

"All Duchy Citizens, we will be assembling on the command deck of Tannhauser Gate at 2pm SLT to go over a plan for retrieval of cargo from crashed freighter 'The One With "Bad [M*therf*cker]" On It'."



Another citizen of the realm laughed on the line. "Naughty freighter," said Kara

She sighed, smiling. She tended to agree.

"The Duchy ships are sentient," Justine said, "and choose their own names."

Emilly nodded, though she was alone in the lab. "I'll be there, though I'll likely have to change."



"I might have to make a trip to Graves for a better suit of armor for this," Justine added.

"You look fine, Emilly," added Kara.

She snorted again, looking down. She'd come directly to the fringe lab from ground level, where she'd been testing the new pool. "Bikini bottoms and a beach dress to go retrieve something from the Dark Sea? I mean..."

Kara giggled. Another bard of the court, Violet, laughed. "Emilly, if you're doing it, I believe it."

She heard Thomas chime in. "I'm in a pretty heavy rig with a VRF six barrel over each shoulder."

She hmmed, pulling out an evac suit she'd found for cheap at some event, slipping into it. She looked down at the way the molded chest arched far enough away from her torso to pretty much leave her naked. "This spacesuit's built for Kupra. I cannot wear this in public," she murmured.

"Cyberfactory?" Justine asked. "They keep doing that."

She tsked, slipping out of it and continuing to search.

"I got a great set of armour for Chief Briggs from Graves. I think we all need it."



Emilly nodded, finally slipping on a dress. It was at least more clothing than the bikini, and it would work for the meeting. "We might!" she added.

"Where is everyone?" asked Thomas.

"Everyone assemble in the briefing room on deck 2 Northwest," said Justine.

The Duchess checked the time. Just a few minutes before two.

(Continued in part CLII.)

and I'm gonna set things straight again, I'm gonna prove them wrong

And then...the Dark Sea arrived.



We'd been discussing various things. The Duke had three full sims originally: Armada of the floating walkways and the patchwork boats; another sim he mostly used for sandbox experiments; and one more, a more medieval-centered sim of shadows, castles, and drifting fog.



This time out, he wants to make sure he can maintain what he has before he considers increasing. So he put in for two sims only: Gearhaven, which will be a mix of the old Gearhaven sim with some new touches, and next to it a purely ocean sim, the Dark Sea.



Now, I will be honest--my plans for Gearhaven were mostly disconnected islands and sea life, and...then I taught Justine how to terraform, so now we have ALL THE LAND, save for the center of open water where the Ocean Club is going to sit. There may be room for sea life around it, but...that's about all.



So I will have to--judiciously--put out sea life, and some sea flora, keeping in mind that openspace sims are restricted by design on prims and scripts. We don't want a ton there, we want to keep it for sailing--especially if Armada returns, it will go on the other side to link Gearhaven to Armada and have open water between.



I just need to figure out how to do all that effectively...while terraforming the rest of everything...decorating Steamopolis...planning the Foundation gala...oh, and working, socializing, and attending live poetry performances.

Should be a breeze.



Sure.