The R Files (part 6)
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Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
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15th August 2000
10:08 GMT
I appear, wincing as a brilliant beam of white light lances out from the cyclops's upper eye towards-. Senior Agent Blaze, who is focusing of frantic evasive flight. Construct palisade shield, construct armour… Huh, that feels familiar. And scan. Where is-?
Sh'rain's being dragged south by her bodyguard, clearly unhappy about leaving her friend behind to fight the giant robot. Objectively the correct decision. Nearest Alliance aircraft are back at headquarters, and they're not supersonic so there's no chance that they could get here in a tactically useful timeframe. We can probably call on the British military for support, but I'm a little worried about what the lower eye-.
The cyclops's head swivels towards me and-
Reinforce!
-pulse-fires with its lower eye directly at me, which fortunately involves shooting at the strongest part of the shield construct. Senior Agent Blaze charges up her hands with a gout of… I think it's plasma? Which she throws at the cyclops's neck, doing… No measurable damage.
And the thing about banshees is that despite their ability to chuck plasma around at will they're not really any stronger or tougher than humans, and she's not even wearing her lightly armoured field uniform because this was supposed to be a diplomatic mission-.
"Sir, get behind the giant glowing shield!"
She glances in my direction for an instant, ducks under another giant beam from the cyclops and then rockets in my direction, taking one last shot at its lower eye as she flies past. It doesn't seem to be particularly good at tracking small objects and certainly doesn't try to turn away to protect its eye… Because it didn't need to. She didn't damage it.
Banshee blasts are pretty nasty if you're an unarmoured human, but even an unarmoured vampire can take a hit or two and keep moving.
She's nearly to me when its head locks onto her, and-. She's not going to-.
I dart forwards, interposing the shield-. The lower eye fires-. She ducks around the edge of the shield, but it isn't as thick there and while the first hit gets blocked the second hits the weakened construct-
It's not weak, it's fine, it's immutable.
-and punches through!
"Ah-!"
Lower the shield!
I get the thicker part of the shield in the way again, replacing the failed parts with something thicker. Then I put a platform under Senior-.
"Oi'm fine!"
I glance down to confirm-. "You got shot, sir."
She rises up besides me, knife cutting away the material of her skirt so that it doesn't.. stick to the burn. "Oi've had worse."
Field trauma training suggests that it's not immediately crippling, though it's going to hurt once the adrenaline wares off. I reach into subspace and pull out an antiseptic spray. Those are safe for banshees, though painkillers… Nothing strong enough to immediately stop that hurting is safe for either banshees or combat zones.
"Here."
She takes it with a nod, pulls the remains of her skirt aside and sprays the burn, her face creasing up in pain as she does so.
The cyclops doesn't fire again, its head rotating back to its direction of travel as it continues its march north west.
"Sir, what happened? What set it off?"
"It didnae loik the look o' me." She checks her injury once more, then passes the bottle back. I subspace it. "Learn anythin' from Mab?"
"Yes… Ah, to be clear, it didn't have a negative reaction to Sh'rain?"
"No?"
"Bit of an odd question, sir, but how closely do you resemble your mother?"
She frowns at me. "What's that got t'do with anything?"
"She and Sir Percival were the ones who stuck it in the stone circle. It may well have pre-registered both of us as active enemies."
"Oh." She shakes her head. "Oi don't remember her that well."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Then maybe just the fact that it remembers being hit by a banshee-."
"No, it didn't attack Sh'rain. It did single me out." She sighs as she watches its back. "Oi hope y' don't think I can stick it back in thur."
"Might have been nice. My best bet is ducking under its crotch, grabbing it with a construct from outside of its arc of fire, and then flying it into space."
"What's wrong wi' that?"
"I don't know the effective range of its main weapon. If I put it into low orbit, it would have line of sight to about a fifth of the world. If it's programmed to destroy the shadoen before preserving humans -and given what happened to Atlantis, I'd guess it is- that would be a significant risk."
"Alright. We'll just have t' follow it, then."
I reduce the size of my shield and head after the giant robot, Senior Agent Blaze following me under her own power.
"What did Director Logan say?"
"He's contactin' the British government. Oi don't know what their planes can do against it…" She looks down at her own clenched fists. "But oi'm comin' up a wee bit short."
"We could ask if Dorn could spare a spaceship?"
She clenches her fists. "Or we could not. What's the hardest you can hit somethin'?"
"I haven't focused on combat with heavily armoured targets. As I said, I could try lifting it. Just hitting it… Pretty hard? The problem is that if I focus on hitting it as hard as I can I'm not going to be thinking about evasion."
"Oi-." Her head jerks, and I get a beep in my ear as I'm included. "Director?"
"Not yet, but in the future, who knows?" I can hear the smile in Senior Agent Fitzpatrick voice. He's found his role… Somewhat reduced since the Alliance embraced openness and transparency. He took a promotion when just about all surviving Alliance agents got one due to the sudden influx of new personnel, but the organisation just doesn't need a creative and quick-witted professional liar at the moment. "So what's this I hear about a giant robot?"
"Sir, a titani cyclops is currently walking from Northern Ireland to Scotland in order to pick a fight with a shadoen we're pretty sure died thousands of years ago. We're not sure how much of a threat it is to anyone, but we do know that it doesn't like Senior Agent Blaze and I."
"What, did you tell it your name was 'Nobody'? Because that's racially insensitive."
"Sir Percival and her mother are the ones who shut it down before."
"Huh. Okay, do you know what the shadoen it's looking for looks like?"
Senior Agent Blaze shrugs. "I don't but I suspect that Sir Percival does."
"Okay. Okay. Then I think I got a plan."
10:08 GMT
I appear, wincing as a brilliant beam of white light lances out from the cyclops's upper eye towards-. Senior Agent Blaze, who is focusing of frantic evasive flight. Construct palisade shield, construct armour… Huh, that feels familiar. And scan. Where is-?
Sh'rain's being dragged south by her bodyguard, clearly unhappy about leaving her friend behind to fight the giant robot. Objectively the correct decision. Nearest Alliance aircraft are back at headquarters, and they're not supersonic so there's no chance that they could get here in a tactically useful timeframe. We can probably call on the British military for support, but I'm a little worried about what the lower eye-.
The cyclops's head swivels towards me and-
Reinforce!
-pulse-fires with its lower eye directly at me, which fortunately involves shooting at the strongest part of the shield construct. Senior Agent Blaze charges up her hands with a gout of… I think it's plasma? Which she throws at the cyclops's neck, doing… No measurable damage.
And the thing about banshees is that despite their ability to chuck plasma around at will they're not really any stronger or tougher than humans, and she's not even wearing her lightly armoured field uniform because this was supposed to be a diplomatic mission-.
"Sir, get behind the giant glowing shield!"
She glances in my direction for an instant, ducks under another giant beam from the cyclops and then rockets in my direction, taking one last shot at its lower eye as she flies past. It doesn't seem to be particularly good at tracking small objects and certainly doesn't try to turn away to protect its eye… Because it didn't need to. She didn't damage it.
Banshee blasts are pretty nasty if you're an unarmoured human, but even an unarmoured vampire can take a hit or two and keep moving.
She's nearly to me when its head locks onto her, and-. She's not going to-.
I dart forwards, interposing the shield-. The lower eye fires-. She ducks around the edge of the shield, but it isn't as thick there and while the first hit gets blocked the second hits the weakened construct-
It's not weak, it's fine, it's immutable.
-and punches through!
"Ah-!"
Lower the shield!
I get the thicker part of the shield in the way again, replacing the failed parts with something thicker. Then I put a platform under Senior-.
"Oi'm fine!"
I glance down to confirm-. "You got shot, sir."
She rises up besides me, knife cutting away the material of her skirt so that it doesn't.. stick to the burn. "Oi've had worse."
Field trauma training suggests that it's not immediately crippling, though it's going to hurt once the adrenaline wares off. I reach into subspace and pull out an antiseptic spray. Those are safe for banshees, though painkillers… Nothing strong enough to immediately stop that hurting is safe for either banshees or combat zones.
"Here."
She takes it with a nod, pulls the remains of her skirt aside and sprays the burn, her face creasing up in pain as she does so.
The cyclops doesn't fire again, its head rotating back to its direction of travel as it continues its march north west.
"Sir, what happened? What set it off?"
"It didnae loik the look o' me." She checks her injury once more, then passes the bottle back. I subspace it. "Learn anythin' from Mab?"
"Yes… Ah, to be clear, it didn't have a negative reaction to Sh'rain?"
"No?"
"Bit of an odd question, sir, but how closely do you resemble your mother?"
She frowns at me. "What's that got t'do with anything?"
"She and Sir Percival were the ones who stuck it in the stone circle. It may well have pre-registered both of us as active enemies."
"Oh." She shakes her head. "Oi don't remember her that well."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Then maybe just the fact that it remembers being hit by a banshee-."
"No, it didn't attack Sh'rain. It did single me out." She sighs as she watches its back. "Oi hope y' don't think I can stick it back in thur."
"Might have been nice. My best bet is ducking under its crotch, grabbing it with a construct from outside of its arc of fire, and then flying it into space."
"What's wrong wi' that?"
"I don't know the effective range of its main weapon. If I put it into low orbit, it would have line of sight to about a fifth of the world. If it's programmed to destroy the shadoen before preserving humans -and given what happened to Atlantis, I'd guess it is- that would be a significant risk."
"Alright. We'll just have t' follow it, then."
I reduce the size of my shield and head after the giant robot, Senior Agent Blaze following me under her own power.
"What did Director Logan say?"
"He's contactin' the British government. Oi don't know what their planes can do against it…" She looks down at her own clenched fists. "But oi'm comin' up a wee bit short."
"We could ask if Dorn could spare a spaceship?"
She clenches her fists. "Or we could not. What's the hardest you can hit somethin'?"
"I haven't focused on combat with heavily armoured targets. As I said, I could try lifting it. Just hitting it… Pretty hard? The problem is that if I focus on hitting it as hard as I can I'm not going to be thinking about evasion."
"Oi-." Her head jerks, and I get a beep in my ear as I'm included. "Director?"
"Not yet, but in the future, who knows?" I can hear the smile in Senior Agent Fitzpatrick voice. He's found his role… Somewhat reduced since the Alliance embraced openness and transparency. He took a promotion when just about all surviving Alliance agents got one due to the sudden influx of new personnel, but the organisation just doesn't need a creative and quick-witted professional liar at the moment. "So what's this I hear about a giant robot?"
"Sir, a titani cyclops is currently walking from Northern Ireland to Scotland in order to pick a fight with a shadoen we're pretty sure died thousands of years ago. We're not sure how much of a threat it is to anyone, but we do know that it doesn't like Senior Agent Blaze and I."
"What, did you tell it your name was 'Nobody'? Because that's racially insensitive."
"Sir Percival and her mother are the ones who shut it down before."
"Huh. Okay, do you know what the shadoen it's looking for looks like?"
Senior Agent Blaze shrugs. "I don't but I suspect that Sir Percival does."
"Okay. Okay. Then I think I got a plan."
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