And then it happened. The Blood Emperor was assassinated. The rebels were fortified in the palace and were swearing oaths to see Kusari rid of the Outcasts at all costs. What happened next shocked all of Sirius in a way that hadn’t happened in perhaps all the 800 years of colonisation. The Outcasts, in retribution for the rebel’s betrayal, started ‘cardiforming’ the two major planets in Kusari that they controlled. They spread highly potent drugs in the atmosphere above the small percentage of the planets that was dry land; and very high population density. The drugs started killing everyone who hadn’t already had long term exposure to cardimine which meant everyone not an Outcast. The populations rose up. On Planet Honshu they resisted and held out for a while and delayed the cardiforming, the Outcasts had fewer resources to draw on there. On Planet Kyushu the death toll on the planet was enormous and civilians in space trying to reach friends and family on the surface were killed in almost as many numbers by Outcasts protecting their new acquisition. Survivors there were few and far between, mostly workers on or under the oceans.
What was worse, not long afterward the rebels were crushed and the Blood Dragon government was re-established. But the damage was irreversible. Kusari was a nation twitching lifelessly as the Outcasts tried to turn it into a zombie state, a dead Kusari revived in the inhuman image of the Outcasts.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
#8 by Carnifex
The very first thing the Empire of the Rising Sun had done, its first official act, was to close its borders to every foreign person on pain of death. A week the borders had been closed. A week of any bounty hunter seen outside of Shikoku being attacked by Nippon forces. A week for the Outcasts to have free reign on Kyushu and Honshu with no foreign eyes to see their deeds. A week of covert attacks and mistrust. And then, without any apparent cause, they had opened their borders again. Many hunters had already moved away to other more accepting houses. Some who hadn’t left yet still left. Carnifex’s first move had been to go outcast hunting, not difficult in a house where half of the planets were crawling with the cardimine suckers. Not much had changed in Kusari though, they were still eyeing the other houses angrily and Carnifex had even had a Nippon officer watch him for several minutes without saying a word while he was on a job in Shikoku. Many things about this new Kusari seemed wrong. Carnifex [b]hoped[/b] that the government really was opening the borders as a show of good faith. However he [b]knew[/b] that anyone with all the firepower of the Outcasts at their backs could not think to turn back now.
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Sunday, May 30, 2010
#7 by Carnifex
Carnifex climbed down from his fighter onto the deck of the landing bay of Deshima, his mind contemplating deeply the state of Kusari.
The inevitable had finally come to pass. New Tokyo fell permanently to the invaders and almost on the spot half the stations still in the hands of resistance fighters had surrendered. All Hunters Guild members had been informed that Kusari resistance were to no longer be considered connected to the house of Kusari. The bounty business in Kusari had temporarily come to a halt (with the exception of the Outcasts who attacked and were attacked without reason or provocation). With the rise of a new government put in place by the Outcasts, sourced from the Dragons, the Hunters Guild had some negotiating to do before the trade in lives could be recommenced in Kusari. And in future it would be the former heroes of Kusari that would be the targets of their oppressed brethren.
Kusari was no more; now the sun had risen on a new empire. BHG now needed a place in it.
The inevitable had finally come to pass. New Tokyo fell permanently to the invaders and almost on the spot half the stations still in the hands of resistance fighters had surrendered. All Hunters Guild members had been informed that Kusari resistance were to no longer be considered connected to the house of Kusari. The bounty business in Kusari had temporarily come to a halt (with the exception of the Outcasts who attacked and were attacked without reason or provocation). With the rise of a new government put in place by the Outcasts, sourced from the Dragons, the Hunters Guild had some negotiating to do before the trade in lives could be recommenced in Kusari. And in future it would be the former heroes of Kusari that would be the targets of their oppressed brethren.
Kusari was no more; now the sun had risen on a new empire. BHG now needed a place in it.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
#6 by Carnifex
(This has some violence in it, knives and guns and death and stuff. Just so you know.)
Osaka Storage Facility had seen better days. Since the Outcasts sacked Honshu and the government fell the station had changed hands several times, being the major storage of basic supplies in the system had made it a prized target. Osaka's location out in open space, the most empty area of the Honshu system, made gaining the element of surprise impossible and as such the resistance fighters were slowly losing their ability to take and hold the station under the superior force of Outcast attacks. At present the Outcasts held the station and were quickly digging in, in preparation for a counter offensive.
Having powered down his ship and set it adrift so that it looked like yet another casualty in an ever growing list Carnifex donned his EVA suit and set out into the emptiness of space. The suit was a stealth adaption, with less armour to reduce inertia and paint on the outside to reduce his signature on small, fighter mounted, scanner rigs. It was outfitted with a cold-gas thruster attachment for zero-G EVAs like this one. While the Outcasts and the resistance had been duke-ing it out for the station (and the Outcasts doing rather well this time it seemed) Carni slid effortlessly through the silent vista of small fighters and bright explosions onto the hull of the station. Finding a section of hull damaged by a torpedo he crawled into the dark forgotten pockmark and waited. Once the Outcasts had secured the space around the station they sent in their strike teams and took control.
Carni set to work on the nearest door with a small hand held computer, his past as a Lane Hacker going to good use as he tapped into the door's mechanism that linked it to the station's main system and carefully severed it. This door now belonged to him. He opened it and the section inside vented, he hoped that no one would have relaxed enough yet to be watching a little breach warning while there still might have been Old Kusari officers on the station. Once inside he closed his first door behind him and found himself in a small corridor. Taking the door at the other end for his own as well he opened it and air rushed into the small corridor. Still in his suit he started searching the station for his target.
He was looking for a Kusari deserter, Ryutaro Shimamura, a prominent officer who his client in the resistance wanted made an example of. An eight million credit example. He knew he'd be somewhere near the station's main computer trying to gain control of it after the Old Kusari resisters locked it down to slow the Outcast's claim on the facility. His job was to also put in place new security lockdowns in case the Outcasts lost the station again. Carni had been tracking him for a few days now and monitoring communications.
Carni was lucky not to have been seen while he moved about; he figured the Outcasts would be moving quickly to establish a perimeter around centres of control and to bring in re-enforcements. Reaching the room that housed the main computer he could see from a distance a tired looking man at a main console with three mean and thoroughly dirty Outcasts looking over his shoulder.
"Looks like I've found him," thought Carni.
He slid silent as a cold, hardened wolf around behind the group of men. One of them seemed to be looking around. Carni stopped, breathing gently. He only had a small energy weapon at hand for use at range if he was spotted. He also had two knives at sides but they wouldn't be much help against three, maybe four, well armed men. When it was safe again he kept moving slowly. He was behind them now. Carni could smell them, the smell of soldiers recently in a life or death struggle with other people, the smell of adrenalin and fear and anger. Silently, with practiced silence, he drew his knives, one in each hand. As he moved in to strike like an evil spectre one of the Outcasts sensed that he was there and began to turn. As fast as his arms could move them he plunged both knives into the backs of the necks of the other two soldiers and kicked out the legs of the turning man with one leg. Now off-balance himself he drew his energy pistol and put a large cauterised wound in the chest of the fallen Outcast just as he raised his own assault rifle to fire. Three Outcasts now lay dead or near death at his feet, sweat beading on his face and breathing heavily through his opened visor he looked up at his target.
Ryutaro was stumbling backward in disbelief. The surprise on his face seemed utter until Carni put a charred hole in one of his legs and it grew in intensity before being diluted with pain. Carni wasted no time, by now anyone nearby on the station would have heard him. He grabbed a knife from one of the dead bodies and plunged it into Ryutaro’s chest bringing forth a short, pained scream followed by silence.
The moment his target hit the deck he was running. The adrenalin surged in his veins like fire. Rounding a corner he came face to face with an investigating soldier, probably another deserter from the devastated and disorderly former Kusari. Acting on instinct he hit him in the face with his gloved hand and flattened him without breaking step. As he neared the two newest doors to his collection he could hear some footsteps behind him. Sealing his visor he switched his suit's support back on. The cries and noises behind him were gaining; he was not as fast in his suit as angered pirates in station assault gear. Reaching the inner door he stopped, turned and anchored his feet to the metal deck with the magnets in his boots, bracing himself. Just as his pursuers rounded the corner into the small space he hit a control on the small hand held device that he had used to hack the door controls. The doors opened up onto open space, venting the atmosphere. A few shocked screams very suddenly died away and all the pirates were knocked flat and kicked forward by the explosive decompression. Emergency bulkheads sealed behind them as they floundered dying on the floor and Carni made a break for the breach in the outer hull. Leaping full speed into the enveloping black he vented almost his entire remaining thrusters to accelerate himself toward the spot where he had left his ship. Sending out tight-beamed signal to it he activated an auto-power up sequence and a tracking beacon so that he could find it. Unfortunately he knew everyone else would too.
"Time to be hunted," he thought to himself.
Osaka Storage Facility had seen better days. Since the Outcasts sacked Honshu and the government fell the station had changed hands several times, being the major storage of basic supplies in the system had made it a prized target. Osaka's location out in open space, the most empty area of the Honshu system, made gaining the element of surprise impossible and as such the resistance fighters were slowly losing their ability to take and hold the station under the superior force of Outcast attacks. At present the Outcasts held the station and were quickly digging in, in preparation for a counter offensive.
Having powered down his ship and set it adrift so that it looked like yet another casualty in an ever growing list Carnifex donned his EVA suit and set out into the emptiness of space. The suit was a stealth adaption, with less armour to reduce inertia and paint on the outside to reduce his signature on small, fighter mounted, scanner rigs. It was outfitted with a cold-gas thruster attachment for zero-G EVAs like this one. While the Outcasts and the resistance had been duke-ing it out for the station (and the Outcasts doing rather well this time it seemed) Carni slid effortlessly through the silent vista of small fighters and bright explosions onto the hull of the station. Finding a section of hull damaged by a torpedo he crawled into the dark forgotten pockmark and waited. Once the Outcasts had secured the space around the station they sent in their strike teams and took control.
Carni set to work on the nearest door with a small hand held computer, his past as a Lane Hacker going to good use as he tapped into the door's mechanism that linked it to the station's main system and carefully severed it. This door now belonged to him. He opened it and the section inside vented, he hoped that no one would have relaxed enough yet to be watching a little breach warning while there still might have been Old Kusari officers on the station. Once inside he closed his first door behind him and found himself in a small corridor. Taking the door at the other end for his own as well he opened it and air rushed into the small corridor. Still in his suit he started searching the station for his target.
He was looking for a Kusari deserter, Ryutaro Shimamura, a prominent officer who his client in the resistance wanted made an example of. An eight million credit example. He knew he'd be somewhere near the station's main computer trying to gain control of it after the Old Kusari resisters locked it down to slow the Outcast's claim on the facility. His job was to also put in place new security lockdowns in case the Outcasts lost the station again. Carni had been tracking him for a few days now and monitoring communications.
Carni was lucky not to have been seen while he moved about; he figured the Outcasts would be moving quickly to establish a perimeter around centres of control and to bring in re-enforcements. Reaching the room that housed the main computer he could see from a distance a tired looking man at a main console with three mean and thoroughly dirty Outcasts looking over his shoulder.
"Looks like I've found him," thought Carni.
He slid silent as a cold, hardened wolf around behind the group of men. One of them seemed to be looking around. Carni stopped, breathing gently. He only had a small energy weapon at hand for use at range if he was spotted. He also had two knives at sides but they wouldn't be much help against three, maybe four, well armed men. When it was safe again he kept moving slowly. He was behind them now. Carni could smell them, the smell of soldiers recently in a life or death struggle with other people, the smell of adrenalin and fear and anger. Silently, with practiced silence, he drew his knives, one in each hand. As he moved in to strike like an evil spectre one of the Outcasts sensed that he was there and began to turn. As fast as his arms could move them he plunged both knives into the backs of the necks of the other two soldiers and kicked out the legs of the turning man with one leg. Now off-balance himself he drew his energy pistol and put a large cauterised wound in the chest of the fallen Outcast just as he raised his own assault rifle to fire. Three Outcasts now lay dead or near death at his feet, sweat beading on his face and breathing heavily through his opened visor he looked up at his target.
Ryutaro was stumbling backward in disbelief. The surprise on his face seemed utter until Carni put a charred hole in one of his legs and it grew in intensity before being diluted with pain. Carni wasted no time, by now anyone nearby on the station would have heard him. He grabbed a knife from one of the dead bodies and plunged it into Ryutaro’s chest bringing forth a short, pained scream followed by silence.
The moment his target hit the deck he was running. The adrenalin surged in his veins like fire. Rounding a corner he came face to face with an investigating soldier, probably another deserter from the devastated and disorderly former Kusari. Acting on instinct he hit him in the face with his gloved hand and flattened him without breaking step. As he neared the two newest doors to his collection he could hear some footsteps behind him. Sealing his visor he switched his suit's support back on. The cries and noises behind him were gaining; he was not as fast in his suit as angered pirates in station assault gear. Reaching the inner door he stopped, turned and anchored his feet to the metal deck with the magnets in his boots, bracing himself. Just as his pursuers rounded the corner into the small space he hit a control on the small hand held device that he had used to hack the door controls. The doors opened up onto open space, venting the atmosphere. A few shocked screams very suddenly died away and all the pirates were knocked flat and kicked forward by the explosive decompression. Emergency bulkheads sealed behind them as they floundered dying on the floor and Carni made a break for the breach in the outer hull. Leaping full speed into the enveloping black he vented almost his entire remaining thrusters to accelerate himself toward the spot where he had left his ship. Sending out tight-beamed signal to it he activated an auto-power up sequence and a tracking beacon so that he could find it. Unfortunately he knew everyone else would too.
"Time to be hunted," he thought to himself.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
#5 by Ghost
It had been somewhat like a bolt of lightening, they were there and then they weren't. An entire war had ensued, one of the most technologically advanced nation's was now just a reach away from pirate control and they had only flown eleven missions throughout the entire ordeal. He could've made assumptions, mental accusations about what was "really going on" and who might be pulling the strings, but it was clear. High command had been just as confused as he was. Kusari had been on a rampaging warpath that could have cut Liberty down the middle and in one day, refocused its military strength back into itself. Rheinland, who blind sided both Liberty and Bretonia with an unannounced alliance with Kusari was now pleading for peace. President Abma and the Liberty DoD had dug in and still refused come out of full defensive posture. All the while, Her Majesty's military stood by and watched the events unfold with an expression of disbelief and confusion.
Ghost sighed as he entered he watched the Tau-29 --> Tau 31 Jump Gate open and begin its artificial phase align. The White Dawn and Angel's Embrace, hospital ships of the Queen, activated their docking strobes and slowly lumbered into the bright light that would take them to the now fortified Tau 31, from which, they would proceed on to Leeds. The Planetform Inc. terraforming outpost on Planet Harris would now be home to some 3,000 Armed Forces fighter pilots and the gates to the other Taus on the far side of the system, the new front line. They'd been ordered to gun down any pirate elements unlucky enough to be found and it had been hinted that High Command wanted no prisoners.
As his wing prepared to jump, a large BMM convoy came through. The company, along with Border World Exports and small contingent of Gateway traders were cashing in on the unstable gold mine that was Kusari. With the Emperor dead and the military tied up with the pirates and themselves, the embargo on Bretonia had been unofficially lifted. The civilian companies, at least the ones who hadn't fled the house, placed an overflowing amount of orders to the western trading companies who's cargo they'd been starved of the since the beginning of the war. Prices on exports to Kusari shot up like a ship in atmospheric escape. A "Danger Tax" had been added to the original subtotal of all orders, since traders would now be flying into "hostile territory", but even this hadn't lessened the number of orders Bretonia received.
As the SAS wing of three passed the convoy, Ghost thought he caught a glimpse of the smiling freighter pilot - the dollar signs nigh visible in his eyes, and the thought of danger absent from his mind. Business and politics..had they both not been able to flourish on each other's failures what kind of world mankind be living in.
(All my blogs can now be found here, indexed in this blog. If you enjoy my writing then please explor them and read 'Carni's Corner' for more background on them.
Link to Carni's Corner )
Ghost sighed as he entered he watched the Tau-29 --> Tau 31 Jump Gate open and begin its artificial phase align. The White Dawn and Angel's Embrace, hospital ships of the Queen, activated their docking strobes and slowly lumbered into the bright light that would take them to the now fortified Tau 31, from which, they would proceed on to Leeds. The Planetform Inc. terraforming outpost on Planet Harris would now be home to some 3,000 Armed Forces fighter pilots and the gates to the other Taus on the far side of the system, the new front line. They'd been ordered to gun down any pirate elements unlucky enough to be found and it had been hinted that High Command wanted no prisoners.
As his wing prepared to jump, a large BMM convoy came through. The company, along with Border World Exports and small contingent of Gateway traders were cashing in on the unstable gold mine that was Kusari. With the Emperor dead and the military tied up with the pirates and themselves, the embargo on Bretonia had been unofficially lifted. The civilian companies, at least the ones who hadn't fled the house, placed an overflowing amount of orders to the western trading companies who's cargo they'd been starved of the since the beginning of the war. Prices on exports to Kusari shot up like a ship in atmospheric escape. A "Danger Tax" had been added to the original subtotal of all orders, since traders would now be flying into "hostile territory", but even this hadn't lessened the number of orders Bretonia received.
As the SAS wing of three passed the convoy, Ghost thought he caught a glimpse of the smiling freighter pilot - the dollar signs nigh visible in his eyes, and the thought of danger absent from his mind. Business and politics..had they both not been able to flourish on each other's failures what kind of world mankind be living in.
(All my blogs can now be found here, indexed in this blog. If you enjoy my writing then please explor them and read 'Carni's Corner' for more background on them.
Link to Carni's Corner )
#4 by Carnifex
Carnifex, having managed to find a new Barracuda FAF on Planet New Tokyo, was now sticking solely to the core system. Kusari was slowly becoming a scene of total chaos. Since the apparent death of the Emperor the economy had bomb shelled and remaining sections of the military had started to disagree with each other about what should be done to halt the advance of the Dragons. There was probably a power struggle of some sort going on behind the scenes but what concerned Carni most was that people were starting to stop paying him. A lot of civilians were just getting away from the approaching front lines mostly in the direction of Shikoku. Some ships had even tried to make their way into Liberty as refugees but there were rumours starting to abound that some were disappearing without leaving wreckage or record of their passage through Kepler or Galileo. People pointed to the rise of the CTP since the end of the war, but pirates normally leave wreckage so Carnifex didn’t put much stock in that.
However no matter what was going on in the crumbling state or on its “southern” borders it wasn’t the problem of the BHG. Not for much longer anyway, the way the war was going soon the BHG would start openly taking jobs against what was soon to become a rebel element in a new Kusari state. As Carnifex patroled past the dark side of Kitadake toward the Hokkaido Jump Gate he wandered how much dirty laundry Kusari had and how much of it he might be able to turn into money.
However no matter what was going on in the crumbling state or on its “southern” borders it wasn’t the problem of the BHG. Not for much longer anyway, the way the war was going soon the BHG would start openly taking jobs against what was soon to become a rebel element in a new Kusari state. As Carnifex patroled past the dark side of Kitadake toward the Hokkaido Jump Gate he wandered how much dirty laundry Kusari had and how much of it he might be able to turn into money.
#3 by Dragonslayer
Dragonslayer sat in the bar of Freeport 6. He had bought a new ship here and changed his transponder to identify his ship as a Kishiro Technologies ship. As he sipped his sake, he contemplated his delima. The Emperor was reportedly murdered, the Empire was crumbling under the combined Dragon and Outcast assaults. Even the Seii Taishogun had disappeared. He had no illusions what would happen to him if he was caught by the Dragons, being the last Samurai of the old Emperor. He had no idea where to go from here, other than to occasionally try to kill a few Outcasts for revenge.
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