Comms Load 6 - Training

So, we had a question! The question was, do we have cyborgs?

Thanks for comment, by the way. We really appreciate them. Shares too!

Anyway, yes we do!

However, post-human culture is still a younger sub-culture in the world of Space Fold Cowboys. While there are certainly a lot of options for human modification, a lot of folks prefer to remain as the way were born. Of course, there are a myriad of reasons for that. Religion, fear, stubbornness, you name it.

Still, nearly every human from a developed world has a data tattoo, a computer printed directly into the skin of the user. This serves as cell phone and laptop for most folk, as well as a handy way to exchange data. These are generally found in the left arm, but can be printed anywhere. The "screen display" can be shut off, but most folks have some kind or art on display.

Many folks who work in space have some further modifications; full body replacement is still relatively uncommon. Those who go through it usually are seeking serious upgrades, for military or medical reasons.  Subtle mods such as more potent on-body computers, sensory upgrades, and concealed tools (or weapons) are relatively common. Well, common away from Earth. Earth has a slew of laws controlling and registering all mods, benign or other wise.

Fully converted cyborgs are quite tough, as they carry internal power sources where a similar sized suit of armor would carry its pilot. The space saved can be used in all sorts of ways, from storage, to power systems and space for weapons.

---

Sharren Smith crouched in the rain. Telltales in her peripheral vision informed her it was a cold rain. She stayed low, along a raise clay mound that functioned as a wind break around the cabbage fields  Cabbage. She remembered what that tasted like.

Sharren did not miss it. She extended her camera aerial, it slid soundlessly from her shoulder. It let her peer just over the edge of the ridge, with out exposing herself. It was unlikely to show up on a thermal scan, if these bumpkins even used thermal gear. Still, discipline wins the day. She mentally chuckled. That line had be driven into her head a thousand times by her father. He had trained her well.

She let her view change to the that of the camera. 122.2 meters to the farm house. An old prefab model, added onto more recently. The addition was two stories tall. The rain and dark blocked normal, but her on board VI had already created a composite from her passive light amplifier and thermal graphic imager into a clear picture of the building. The second story addition bled warm air badly, being mostly hand made, this was not surprising.

One guard, in a heavy poncho stood out front. he stood near the door, not particularly alert. The poncho made it hard to tell if the guard had armor on or not. She noted motion detector lights on the visible corners of the building. There looked to be a heavy stone cellar under the new part of the house. To round it all off there was low stone wall about 15 meter from the building, creating a quaint little yard and garden.

She would have smiled, but she had not kept her face in the last upgrade. Rubes. This could hardly be considered security. If she had brought grenades, this could be over in seconds.

Captain Marcotte had given the locals five days to come up with a metric ton of untainted food, and at least two pounds of gold or platinum. They had not paid. The guys in house were the local mukity muks, or the mayor. She did not care.

They had to be made example of. Messy, brutal, and extreme, those were her orders. That meant no grenades.

Sharren retracted the camera, and checked her rifle. It had been hard wired to her VI, showing ammo, and feeding the scope data to her O.B.C., showing her exactly were each bullet would land. Still, a manual check made her feel better. Her rifle and side arm in place, loaded and primed, she waited. Lightning flashed  and in it's thunderous wake Sharren lept over the wall.

Myomer bundles in her legs her legs launched her 140 Kg frame into a 110 kph sprint, clearing the distance in just over 5 seconds. She vaulted the wall and kicked the guard. He saw her at the last second, calling out an almost word note of surprise as her ribs collapsed onto his heart. It seems he was not wearing armor, she noted.

Without waiting, she threw a flash bang through the window nearest the door. The window shattered, and her VI popped the grenade, not waiting for it's timer to expire. She put two rounds in the door handle and where her VI had implied there would be a bold, and kicked the door in, momentum carrying her through the threshold like like death's bride.

She put down every one in the house' living room. She designated targets, her body shot them. she felt bad about the teen age boy closest to the door. Still, he had a rifle and that made him a foe. 11 seconds, 5 bodies. None of them matched the Mayor's picture profile. 23 rounds left in the guns ammo block. Sharren put a burst through the wall, angled into the upper floor.

The prefab panels gave way to the 12 mm rounds, and she heard a shout of fear. the VI high lighted the most likely source, and she put five more rounds through the wall, hoping to tag the hostile before he had a chance to see her.

She Never liked it when they fought back, she thought to herself as she moved to the stairs.....

-------------


Henderson gunned the runnabout. The 4 wheeled off-road vehicle whined in response. The wheel mounted electric motors were being pushed to their limit as he drove his squad toward the farm house.

He cursed, the rain was making this difficult. Back water colonies like this never had proper roads, and he skidded wide through a muddy curve in the dirt road. Luckily, the forest was cut well back from the road, saving him from a crash.

"Hold it together Henderson" Lance corporal O'banion barked, "ETA 2 minutes boys" he added. He was in charge and he was the most experienced of them, with a full tour of duty already under his belt. "Check your gear men. Some of these pirates are pretty tough." He followed his own example, and the corporal checked his battle rifle, as well his armor's read outs, before attaching his helmet.

"Henderson, stay with the vehicle, and provide cover as requested. Sanders, Crowley, form up on me, 5 meter spread." O'banion had run similar missions before, even done this live fire. Not something many UNCN marines ever got to do.

As his helmet display lit up, he considered his day. This morning a runner on horse back had come into the garrison, and alerted them to the pirate threat. The Harris-Hawk Vertol was down, due to the lack of power cells. Fission batteries only lasted so long, and the last resupply was over a year late.

Accordingly, command had sent then in one of the fuel drinking runnabout jeeps. He had been hauling ass for 7 hours, and hoped that he was in time, it had taken the courier days to get to the garrison. He prayed to holy jesus that he was not too late. Pirates could go hard on fringers. That lesson he had learned all to well back on Michi Gami, his first tour.

As they approached, he could see the gate to the yard was closed, and the house lights were on. there was no one standing guard, however, and O'Banion had been told to expect a guard. The Marines, resplendent in their stark white body armor, piled out of the runabout and began to advance at O'Banions hand signal.

------

Sharren was just finishing her clean up. She was using a dish towel from the kitchen to get the worst of the blood off of her armor casing. She knew it was easier to get off now than to wait till she was back in orbit. Plus the men would bitch about the smell in the STO. She had not smelled anything in years, and had trouble remembering what the big deal was.

The VI nagged at her attention as the was worked some skin out her knuckle plates. Punching un-mod'd humans was messy business. Vehicular noise detected. Shit, she thought, more hillbillies  She had hoped she was done, and now she would have to wash her hands again. Maybe the rain would help, she mused. She waited near the front door, but she did not hear anything over the rain. The vehicle had shut down. She expected heavy breathing, or hushed commands, but nothing. They must be trying to sneak up on her, she thought. Pathetic.

She stepped outside to investigate visually. She knew she could take a truck load of base-lines on her own. The locals did have any weapons she had to worry about.

------

Sanders was on the right, the house and squad on his left as they cautiously advanced towards the farm house. His visor's light amp showed his the body of the guard, and his rifle was level and ready. He nearly hesitated when he saw it sweep out of the house. Tall, and graceful, yet clearly not human.

The 'Borg was armored head to toe, with a vaguely feminine cast to its torso. There was a blank armor plate where it's face shoudl have been, and it carried a massive assault rifle. It's pace and digitigrade legs implied it was built for speed. O'Banion screamed a command into the comm channel, but Sanders was already pulling the trigger. Their training showed. the squad fired as one, and sparks flew and died in the rain as the hyper velocity bullets slapped and bit and the Cyborgs torso and head.

It neither flinched nor made a sound, it just lept. It lept 8 meters sideways, it's rifle doing all talking. Sanders dropped to a knee, and triggered the under-mounted 30mm tube on his own weapon. He ignored, or more properly did not notice the telltale in his visor noting Crowley was dead.

------

Sharren had not expected marines. A failure of discipline she would now suffer for. She was noting the display of damage the bullets had caused, all insignificant,  when the outer most marine popped a grenade at her. Her body's threat response system tried to dodge, but at this range there was not time, and the 30mm frag grenade burst against the right side of her abdomen. The blast knocked her down, but she quickly rolled backward to her feet, still operational. Displays showed her armour there was heavily stressed, but intact.

She took aim and fired at the smart one. The gun did not respond.

"Fucker" She vocalized. The rifle was trash. Tell tales noted she was in worse shape than she thought. She wheeled, and ran back toward the house, meaning to go around it for cover. She drew her side arm and fired it left handed as she went.

------

O'Banion surged to his feet, the frag grenade, or maybe a rifle round had knocked him down, but now he was in the fight, adrenaline flowing like atmo through a thrust duct. All he cared about was the target. He emptied the last of his ammo block at the retreating cyborg.

"Hendersen, enemy circling he house, use grenades, it's a heavy." O'Banion hoped Hendersen was a decent shot under pressure. He knew he hadn't been any use in his first fire fight.
-----

Sharren circled the house, full speed, hoping that she might catch the marines less on their guard. She prepared a grenade as well. Turn about is fair play, she thought.  She was still plotting the fight in her head when the 4th marine saw her and fired. She was not at all ready when the 4th troopers grenade burst against her left arm.

Her body twisted it's right hand away, trying to protect the grenade she was holding. This time her weapon survived, and she returned fire left handed as soon as she could re-aim. Two more grenades burst against her. Only frag rounds, she thought. Not enough boom to break her armor. She had their number now. She began putting 15mm pistol rounds on the marine by the jeep, hammering his armor, and preventing him from reloading his grenades.
----

Hendersen was pinned down, alerts screaming at him that his armor was failing. His struggle was enough, though. Sanders had switched his load. He had one AP grenade in his kit. Not standard issue, possibly court martial materiel if he was caught, but he always knew he'd want one if he hadn't got one. As the hulking metal bitch came into view, she was still blasting away at Henderson. Sanders let her have it. He sighted the rifle, just as he'd been trained, and triggered the tube. Thump. Clang-boom.

The AP grenade caught her just under the left arm, and the frame of her metal skeleton glowed red and orange where the round has cut a 5 cm hole in her side. He and O'Banion immediately put 5mm fire on that hole, hoping to bring her down for good.

---

Sharren screamed. her left arm was not responding, and her vision was glitchey. She turned to the marines that were shooting her, holding up her right arm, but she knew a few of those bullets had gone into her now un-armoured left before she turned. Power was failing, and her legs were failing. Only one thing to do.

"Discipline" she spoke aloud, or hoped she did, unsure if her external speakers were working. The word was like a prayer of an errant soul, now returned to the fold. She held the grenade against the hole in her left side, and triggered it. Her world went black.

Comms Load 5 - Greyhounds.

So, what is a Greyhound?

Well, more data is listed in the RPG book, but since several characters in these stories live up to the description, let's talk a little bit about what they are.

Human genetic modification has been a reality in this sci-fi world for some time. In fact, most humans alive in 2393 CE have pre-natal modification, or have inherited traits from their parents. The most extreme forms of this are called Chimeras.

Chimeras are artificial subspecies or in some cases, artificial species of creatures. The Greyhounds are one such sub-species. They were designed about 200 years ago, after the unification war. The line was intended to become super soldiers. The UN eventually found out about the project, and freed all of the test subjects, releasing them into the general population.

They were unexpectedly able to breed in with normal humans. While many Greyhound reproduced with each other, many had children with baseline humans as well. They breed true 70% of the time, and this has carried the line through to today's times.

The Greyhounds are very strong, very fast people, if a bit short. Their nervous system is wired differently, and they have and very acute sense of smell, perhaps 25 times human "normal." Nothing like a real dog, of course, but still quite useful.  Greyhounds also see and hear better than baseline folks. A typical greyhound stand about 5'7," can bench press 400 lbs, leap 6 feet straight up, and run at 30 miles an hour for at least 5 minutes.

Originally, the line was not terribly bright, but that has improved over time. Their main disadvantage is that they have trouble focusing. Due to the overclocked nervous system, and very powerful senses, Greyhounds notice everything. Every motion, every smell, every sound registers in their mind.

This makes them easily distracted from complex tasks, and may give others the impression that they are lazy or day dreaming. This is not the case, but it does make folks who have the Greyhound trait expression seem very excitable or distracted. Many Earth born Greyhounds take meds to deal with this.

Of course, very few Greyhound like the feeling of being on meds, and many actively feel cheated of life. A part of the sentiment comes from the fact that Greyhounds do not have the same life span as a baseline human. Very few Greyhound live past the age of sixty terran years. This was a "design feature" in the original line, meant to reduce the retirement costs of for an army using them as soldiers.

----

Earth folk are generally intolerant of un-medicated grey hounds, as they are intolerant of Chimeras in general. A lot of people don't like to be reminded of the wars (despite the fact that they were over 100 years ago) and Earth folk also don't generally like to stand out of the crowd. It's very hard for most Chimeras to blend in, either by their appearance, or by their behavior. Earth folk work very hard to be normal, which is why Chimeras receive a higher than average arrest rate and deportation rate.

Full details on Chimeras, Solist racism, and other sci-fi details are pending, so keep reading gang!

I expect one more post this week.
-J

Comms Load 4 - Opening to Glory Days

This opens a novella, which is also the opening for a play test module for the RPG. right now it looks like we have two novellas in the works for the Spacefold Cowboys universe, as well as the game itself. Happy reading, and thanks for all your support....Jesse

P.S. - Glossary term: STO is short for surface to orbit, which could be anything from a combat drop-ship to a civilian heavy weight cargo shuttle. Since most ships can't, or at least shouldn't land, this is how most folks get from planet to ship, and vice versa.

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The Tramp Hauler Glory Days was pulling into orbit. It had been a long ride but her captain, Richard Higgins, hoped it would be a profitable run.

Parzifal was a new colony, set to receive it’s fifth colony train any month now. Most of the people down there were volunteers, a lot of them from Proxima or Sol. Hopefuls who wanted a new life on the frontier, romantics who believed in a brave new world, and the down trodden who were trying their luck on what many viewed as life last chance.

Richard thought of them as customers. He’d be flying the Glory Days since he bought her back in 2370. He bought the ship to exploit a UN subsidy that provided captains that flew to un-serviced or under serviced colonies with capital to purchase saleable cargo. The subsidy also guaranteed a certain buy-back of trade goods he took home in lieu of cash. A lot of colonists were cash poor, but would have substantial crops of food, tobacco, and possibly some raw gold or silver ore.

There were only about 100,000 people down there right now, but no trade or naval vessel had been out here in over a year. Richard has bought the data load from the last colony ship, which had returned with reports of nasty problems with the local wild life.

Parzifal was not a terraformed world; it had not needed it. While still low on water, the planet had a livable temperature, breathable air, and plenty of sunshine. Parzifal also had advanced life. The 20 year study had not found anything smarter than a dog, however, so the green light for colonization had gone up. The oxygen levels were high, and the gravity was about earth normal, .9 g. It was safe to eat the local beasties and plants, though they were rather different in form than most Earth life.

Richard had a good haul to sell, his vessel set up like a traveling shopping mall. Richard had everything a growing colony might need. His main cargo was skin suits, the all purpose undergarment that were comfortable at any temperature between 0 and 45 degrees centigrade. He also had moisture collectors, the big ones farmers use to collect atmospheric water for their crops. Throw in a smattering of vehicles, solar panels,V-engines, water and geothermal turbines to round it off.

Data updates from Earth and Proxima he brought for free. Richard always tried to cultivate good will at new colonies, and shared news with anyone who asked. Sure, he brought a few messages that folks had paid him to bring to family members and the like. He took pride in charging very little for those messages.

With the wildlife troubles, he hoped to sell his entire stock of guns and body armor at a premium. Most colonies had a few folks who could make their own, but Richard had some pretty high-end toys, and reloading gear as well. He knew that fear was a powerful sales tool, and he hoped to make out well on this haul.

Jenny, his first mate, looked up from her station. The pilot console was in the center of the bridge, occluded by displays on all sides, creating a virtual environment. The pilot was able to quickly see anything the ships sensors could. As she "looked up" from her work, the screens around her became translucent, signaling Richard that she had finished her work.

“Rich, we have a good orbit laid in. We’ll be in real-time hailing distance in an hour.” She looked smug. She was better than most and jump calculations, and had saved a days flight time landing their jump as close to the planets gravity threshold as possible.

“Nice work Jen, why don’t we check on the boys? I want the STO packed and ready to go as soon as possible. I hear they have natural hot springs down there, and a little R&R will do us all some good….” Richard smiled. His crew had not seen dirt on their boots in nearly a year, and were going a little stir-crazy in the limited confines of the ship.

“Never fear Cap’n” she smiled back, “I think Trace has been texting my com about every ten minutes, asking when he can launch.” Jen shook her head. Trace, their STO pilot, was descended from Greyhound parents. They little bastard had run out of his calming meds two weeks ago, and was getting on every ones nerves. Being of Greyhound stock he was filled with energy, so much that two hours a day of wind sprints in the cargo hold did little to keep him calm.

“Let’s hope the locals can handle him” Richard said as he and Jen left the bridge, “He might want to end the wildlife problems himself.” They both had a friendly laugh as they headed to the ships commons.

Load 3 - Life Sentence

Billiam Woke with a start. He normally woke slowly, having lived a life time with out alarm clocks. He tried to get out of his bed, but realized he was not in bed at all.

The last thing he remembered was his sentencing hearing, a kangaroo court, he thought. He never meant to kill any one. he had not started the fight. Billiam recalled the judge going on about how "his kind" has no right to terrorize regular folks.

"Bastard" Bill said aloud. "that was man-slaughter at the worst". Not that it really mattered. Manslaughter still gets you deported. Bill gave a look to his surroundings. he was no longer in his holding cell. nor was he wearing the same clothes he had been to trial in.

he was strapped to some kind of chair, in a very closed in space. All the closer for his bulk. Bill was small for his type, a "Biggie" left over from the unification war. well, his great grand father had served in the war. Bill was natural born, not a clone.

He stood some six foot nine inches tall, and weighed in at 330 Lbs. Bill liked the old system of measurements, more romantic he thought. the squeeze was tight, and as he turned his head, a voice kicked on in his helmet.

"Remain still for safety" the voice was pleasant, a Female Simulated voice. "Drop Capsule will be launching presently". Bill's heart started to race. he remembered a bit more clearly now. Level three sentences mean being dropped on an unterraformed hell hole, to work in the terraforming plant or die. Shit Shit Shit was all the could think for a moment. Bill truly hated flying. he had thought that he'd be taken down by a Surface To Orbit shuttle. Not the case it seemed.

"Attention" the Voice re-asserted itself, "Prisoner 45873290-AAAZ Billiam X. Harkey, you have been deported from earth to serve all man kind in a grand terraforming project." So screwed, he was thinking, only half listening to the Sim.

"Billiam, Welcome to Prosperina-III. This Planet has an over thick atmosphere, which is being thinned by 22 air-scrubber facilities. you are being dropped near #21." As she droned on, maps and relevant data scrolled across the screen. "The screen in front of you is a Data tablet, please take it with you as you exit your capsule  to your right and left are two orange hard cases. these will mag clip to you suit.(animations played to demonstrate) You have two hours of atmosphere. The Tablet has a GPS function, and will guide you to the facility."

The voice went on the explain that failure to keep the facility in top condition would result in the navy dropping less food than normal, other wise all the prisoners had a free hand to do as they liked. All air traffic would be one way, which was why they are using the drop pods.

"Enjoy you new life" the Sim cut off, and scant seconds later the Mag-accelerator screamed a harsh metallic voice, and threw him at the planet below with no warning. Hell of a way to start a day, Bill thought.