Hive Queen Quest 56.2

The dunes of aral shift and wave in the wind as the night continues to darken, rumbling slightly as animals flee from their buried nests. A geyser of sand and chips of stone erupts forth as Lyle and Mauser, locked together as they exchange blows, tumble through the air, shattered wings and sputtering jump jets struggling to steady themselves as they plummet into the sand, separating as they roll wildly over the hills, their armored suits sending chips of sparking circuits and chunks of bleeding chitin flying away. They stop, nearly ten meters apart, and Lyle hoists himself up, stripping off dead and dying armored plating as Mauser ejects himself from his shattered drop suit.

“Damn conditions.” Lyle grumbles as he wipes blood from his mouth. “First it's some officer whining about some old tower 'oh but it was the first thing the settlers built,'” he says in a mocking tone. “And filled with armed combatants to boot, yea. Now I gotta tip toe around a pile of rocks some snake people made 'cuz it looks pretty.” Lyle stands up as he kicks a clawed boot from his foot, sending it arcing through the sky as Mauser pulls a large, humming machete shaped vibroblade from his suit's pack, and Lyle extends his own arm blades, and the two charge each other, their weapons clashing with a burst of sparks that flash against the dimly lit dunes beneath the star filled, cloudless sky.

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Sorry lyle,

Anons are pussies

I like to think it spices things up

"Oh don't whine Lyle, at least there weren't any snake cyborgs attacking you like the last time i came here."

Are you still gonna open up quantum commms improvement research?

Would be nice to add that to the pile sooner than later.

Gotta make sure to recover or destroy all our lost equipment at the end of this. Don't want to leave any of that stuff lying around.

Also, Lyle's totally got this fight. His augs are second to none and reinforcements are (should be?) in route.

I think we need to ask Theseus for a shared research project for that, could also add the smith head.

Probably true.

I think Theseus would actually be virtually ideal for a joint research project on the Psionic Cannon. He's definitely as "blind" as they come, but is a far more trustworthy (and efficient) researcher and constructor than the humans.

Not sure on the joint Psionic Cannon idea.

Well he's an AI, that's pretty much as impervious to psionic manipulation as one can get.

Is it? I have no idea how void psionics work.

That's actually a good idea. Actually probably get everyone involved in that at the end once we've researched everything else. Theseus is blind, Heretic has experience and knows about the dangers better than anyone else, and the Hive is the most psionically capable. Just play to each of our strengths and split up the work in such a way as to minimise the danger.

The computer continues to track the new shuttle as the formation of fighters intercept it, and they begin to change course, moving together back in the direction of the valen colony, and a limb pulls the ship down to a lower altitude, scraping a dune as the cargo bay opens, scooping sand and debris into the belly of the ship as Jackob and Dillon leap the short distance to the ramp and the ship ascends again as the large, bulky shuttle continues to close in. As the Angel rises into the air, you can see the shuttle touch down, and a squad of humanoid robotic puppets leap to the ground as they begin to search through the debris.

Coil is conflicted, his minds examining the situation and requesting guidance from the hive.

>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle
>Have Lyle disengage combat and get to the angel
>Have the Angel wait as long as possible until more valen arrive to investigate
>Other (write in)

Yeah this is probably the best way to go about that when we eventually get to it

>>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle

>>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle
Time to get our operators out of the area.

>>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle

>>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle

As far as we know, all psionically capable beings are so because they grew structures in their brain that allow them to pick up tachyons.
Mom may have done something to humans that rendered them mostly blind, but theres still some of that residual capability left, as shown by Steiner Sr. and Killinger's experiments.
Artificial intelligences, being synthetic beings, are totally incapable of spontaneously growing psionic receptors, as far as our knowledge of psionics tell us.

>>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle

>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle
But only if he is losing, let him have his fight.

>>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle

We don't need to get detected here and give the Union a "legitimate" excuse for being here and destroying ruins. The situation is completely fucked, as intended. Now we need to GTFO without revealing the other cards we have in play.

>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle

Dammit Lyle, those rocks belong in a museum!

>>Have the Angel wait as long as possible until more valen arrive to investigate
I want Mauser alive and intact as possible for the Valen to blow their top off, and Coil doesn't have a great track record in that regard. Sides, Lyle seems to be doing okay.

Coil should pick up Jackob and co at this point though, I suspect Calhoun could use a dip in the medi pod.

We don't actually know this for sure, and having Theseus attempt to fire the cannon will inevitably draw the crystals' attention to him. Not sure if I want to do that to him.

This, mostly. Theseus would have to study psionics and build some sort of device to detect and interact with psionics to become aware and not "blind", but it would be like the reverse case of us and technology vs biology, where we suck at it and will never be as good at as Theseus while we're awesome at biology and vice versa.

>Have Coil provide air support and pick up Lyle

Please roll 2d100, the first for Lyle trying to wrap things up on his own as a point of pride, the second for Coil bringing the thunder.

Rolled 72, 18 = 90 (2d100)

For Mother

Rolled 55, 12 = 67 (2d100)

FOR COIL

Rolled 70, 74 = 144 (2d100)

FOR MOTHER

Rolled 83, 42 = 125 (2d100)

It's time.

Rolled 32, 43 = 75 (2d100)

HERE WE GO

FOR MOTHER

This is possible, but one other advantage Theseus has when studying psionics is that he is a distributed, as opposed to a centralized hive intelligence. It's possible he may be able to cut off infected "Theseus" instances without us losing the whole intelligence and our ally.

The Confederacy managed to build and fire the Psionic Cannon several times, and it was destroyed due to the volatile nature of the gun rather than being attacked by the Void Crystals.
I'm reasonably sure that it'll be the same thing with Theseus, but regardless he has to make an informed decision in the matter.
I'm sure Heretic will be happy to go along regardless.

Damn, I meant detect and interact with tachyons there.

I thought they only managed to get off one shot with it before things started exploding.

i'm looking forward to when we go back to messing with the commonwealth diplomat.
weird, some words i didn't mean to write i did without remembering writing them

Yeah, queeny and her drones fucking with people is always a highlight.

Yeah, user, I'm really looking forward to that too. Wise's new eyes (even without all the bells and whistles upgrades) should give him a new perspective (ha) on us. It'll be nice seeing how we can confuse all the highly trained and paid xenos specialists the Commonwealth can throw at us.

Scouting pods when?

They fired it three times before it fucked up.
>The cannon fires. You feel the hollow scream of the crystal shard as it cracks from the force, and a dozen of the human ships are gone. There is cheering in the firing chamber, and someone orders the devices to be fired again.
>The next shot sweeps across a wing of advancing ships, reducing them to a shower of slag.
>The cannon fires again from its position several kilometers away, but something is wrong. You can feel the energy flow poorly, through misaligned conduits.
Though i'm not sure anymore if it was the design of the cannon itself that failed or whether the bombardment from the Union fleet messed up something. These things are apparently fragile as fuck.

Next week, looks like.

Interesting, didn't our mother only get 3 shots off as well. Maybe there's some flaw in the design our thinkers didn't account for that limits the gun to 3 shots?

We'd need more data to prove that, since on both occasions the weapon was damaged by the time it fired its final shot. In Mother's case her Hiveship was being eaten up by the Void avatar thing and for the humans the nuclear bombardment from the Union Fleet.
Though it would be a good idea to have backups of the cannon in the event that that is the case.

Lyle lunges with his arms, stabbing at the air as Mauser evades, swinging his vibroblade to parry and bringing his forehead into Lyle's with a loud thud that sends Lyle stumbling back several steps. Mauser flips his bade in his hands as he hops in his stance, a mixture of Gemanise style Grav Maga with a clear influence of some kind of gutter boxing style Lyle isn't familiar with by name, but has take a punch or two from.

"What's the matter, chrome dome, they forgot to reinforce that thick stull of yours?" He says. Lyle spits a bit of blood and laughs.

"So you do talk. And here I thought the Union kept their dogs on a shorter leash then that." Mauser wings his blade at the comment, Lyle parrying it with a wing of his arm as he catches his other blade along Mauser's arm. He jerks his arm up, sending the blade searing through flesh and spraying blood across his armored skinsuit. Mauser acknowledges the three inch deep gash along his arm with a mild grunt, and brings the bleeding elbow into Lyle's nose with a loud crack, grabbing his arm as Lyle leans back and pulling him in again as his arm tries to hook around Lyle's head. He ducks and sends a sweeping kick to Mauser's legs, sending him sprawling to the sand.

Lyle dives in, both elbows held out as his blades slide through the forearm to drive through Mauser's chest. Mauser rolls to the side, bringing his foot up into Lyle's chin as his blades slice through his calf, and Mauser swings his own blade in response, slicing off Lyle's left ear as he parries the blade, sparks illuminating the night as he strikes the blade arm with his pistol sledge. The arm snaps at a sudden right angle, rebounding back with the rubbery elasticity of the surrounding muscle as the bone within erupts from beneath the skin.

Cont.

I'll be honest here, I kinda want to parasite Mauser, and then have him and Lyle have Buddy-cop adventures in space

Lyle's a loose cannon that doesn't play by the rules
Mauser is a loyal soldier, following all the regulations
Together, they fight the tyranny of the void lords and the Black Queen!

Would be hilarious but Lyle wants his "honorable gladiatorial fight" so someone's gonna die.

Release some spare flies from the Angel to track him and implant him later I guess.

youtube.com/watch?v=0Z_nE0-SXRI

The Queen should really install a Small Egglayer in the Hel's Angel if they haven't already

Lyle will "want" whatever we tell him to want!

For real, though, Mauser will probably die here unless we intervene to save him. It's possible Lyle will leave him alive out of some insane fellowship between drop troopers, or to boost his fame or enjoy the next fight, but in all probability Mauser's death will happen unless we say no.

And i don't want to say no, let Lyle have his fun.
Besides, what use do we have of two badass droptroopers?

The valen are doing a search and can probably follow the trail of destruction

And if he is still alive they will add him to the rest of the prisoners and we can infect him later

You don't want to load them up with as much awesome weaponry we have, point them at the Black Queen and say "Have fun you two"?

>"Whoever kills more gets a prize!"

Copying his subtly different skill set.

Mauser grabs the arm, pulling close as he brings his foot up, and with a stomping motion kicks clean through Lyle's knee, cracking the chitin armor and hyper extending the artificial muscles with a soft, springy click. Mauser's foot rebounds, and comes down again with a sound like a steel cable snapping and the knee bends back an inch.

Lyle brings his fist into Mauser's ribs, cracking three on contact, and he extends his blade, aiming for the spleen. Mauser lets out a stifled shout and brings an elbow into Lyle's face, cracking his eye socket and they both reel back. Mauser stumbles, gripping his flopping arm that still holds his vibroblade, while Lyle quickly limps back, bringing his knee back into place with a sickening crack that you are certain it was not supposed to make when you designed it.

"Any part of you left that's human?" Mauser says, changing the grip of his blade to his other hand. "Or are you just a rogue Smith at this point?"

The two of them stand among the dunes catching their breath, both locked eye to eye as they stand in their almost-faltering stances.

"You think it's yer arms and legs that make you human?" Lyle says suddenly. "I know cunts born with less than that."

"I bet, Tarwin's got quite the problem with mutations. Too much sun." He says, his voice biting down like a wolf striking at the throat as the fainted reaction fires across Lyle's face. "I'd recognize Ingalasangwe anywhere. It's a bigger giveaway than the accent." Mauser flips his blade in his hands, keeping its momentum up as.

"Don't push it. I've been enjoying our scrap so far." Lyle says, and spits a tooth. Mauser scrunches his nose.

"I bet you have, prim. I just see it as animal control." Lyle charges, his knee crunching with each leaping step, and Mauser swings his blade. The two collide, their blades sinking into each other as they fall off the edge of a dune, trailing blood as they roll to the bottom of the shifting dune.

Cont.

We can create a clone of Lyle and Mauser.
Double the badass all in one convenient package!

>You don't want to load them up with as much awesome weaponry we have, point them at the Black Queen and say "Have fun you two"?
>>"Whoever kills more gets a prize!"
Tempting, but anything involving OQ will be space battles or full scale planetary warfare, not only are they obvious targets and not used to hive on hive war, but also are probably weaker than our heavy warriors and colossi. Just use Lyle against the union occasionaly.
This however gives me an idea of taking his head and getting a droptrooper specialization for our clones.

Aw dont be a cunt now, Mauser.

whats "Ingalasangwe"?

Wait what. Mauser's arm broke not Lyle's?

>Mauser swings his own blade in response, slicing off Lyle's left ear as he parries the blade, sparks illuminating the night as he strikes the blade arm with his pistol sledge.

I can't handle pronouns it seems.

Probably Lyles martial style.

Space South African-Australian

Lyle can have his fun by cutting Mauser's head off in combat.
Then we steal the head and use memories for training simulations.

What an absolute, unredeemable, asshole. I was going to vote for saving Mauser after this, or at least capturing him.

Now, I don't give a fuck. Kick his shit in Lyle! Kill his ass dead!

K

whats he mean with "prim"?
primitive? primate?
that context was a followup insult right?

>Ingalasangwe
So, any guesses as to what this word means?

Pretty much, i assume. He's just bein an ass, though if its tactical in nature or not i dunno

Well that came up after saying mutations and also got the rise in lyle

So maybe it refers to a stable breed of mutie that considered sub human?

We need him to be a Valen prisoner.

And we'll want a parasite so we know what they talk about.

Probably identified Lyles fighting style as something from Tarwin. Thats my guess.

I doubt that would be possible in a mere 200 years, but I think you may be right about the mutations. Mauser appears to be trying to antagonize Lyle as much as possible so I would assume it was some kind of disparaging remark about some ethnic background or genetic makeup.

The two separate, tumbling uncontrollably as they both come to a stop in the sand, blood pooling around each of them. Mauser shifts his weight and rolls to the side, struggling to stand as he stumbles to his feet. He spits a glob of blood at his feet.

"You don't even bleed right." He says. Lyle scoots his undamaged leg against the sand and slides himself up the dune's slope.

"I bleed just fine." Lyle says. "Give me a good half hour, I'll be ready for round two. You?" He spits a shattered tooth absent mindedly as he twists his knee back and forth with a grinding noise, trying to pop it back into place. Mauser continues breath heavily, gasping as blood drips across the sand at his feet from the deep wounds along his side and the split flesh of his arm. In the distance, the whine of the Angel's engines begin to fade through the wind. Mauser stumbles, but catches himself in time, if only barely, his vibroblade sinking into the sand at his feet as he presses the wounds between his ribs.

""I thought not." Lyle says as the two maintain eye contact. The growing whine of the Angel's engines begins to drown out the sounds of distant animals and the whipping wind, its cloak dropping in the sky as it closes in.

"So what's your plan now?" Mauser says, his arm struggling, and finally gripping the hilt of his blade as he pulls it free from the sand.

>Have Lyle finish the fight
>Leave Mauser in the desert alone
>Leave him in the desert, drop a crate of water behind
>Other (write in)

>>Have Lyle finish the fight
FINISH HIM

Adopt him.

>>Other (write in)
Ask lyle to subdue him and put him on the angel. Rip off his arms and legs to prevent escape if he thinks he'll survive it

If not,
>Have Lyle finish the fight
THough I'd bet good money he'll come back as a smith alter if we don't grab him here

Leave it up to Lyle. Mauser made it personal, let our boy decide the outcome.

Supporting this.

>Have Lyle finish the fight
Knock him out and make it easy for the valen to find him

Figure if we leave him alive and awake he probably go to ground and evade the search parties using uber solider survival skills

So we are going to need to gift wrap him for the valen

>>Leave him in the desert, drop a crate of water behind
The Valen have to find him.

Parasited.

If this option wins we have to shoot a flare to make it easy.

>Other (write in)
Take him with us.

Oh man this is a tough one. QD has an impressive capacity to make even the most unlikable of NPCs useful and relatable, but this one is particularly unlikable. That, and I am not willing to let him free to talk about our agent's tech and abilities. Decisions, decisions...

>Leave Mauser for dead in the desert
>Leave him in the desert with water for the valen to find
>Have Lyle finish the fight
>Let Lyle decide himself
>Other

Drop him in the path of a Valen shuttle?

>let lyle decide

>Leave him in the desert with water for the valen to find

This, he's out here exclusively in response to Lyle, it should be his call on how to end it. But if he does let him leave, he's getting a parasite.

>>Let Lyle decide himself

>>Let Lyle decide himself

>>Leave him in the desert with water for the valen to find

I am a surprised we don't have parasites and flies on the Angel.

>Let Lyle decide himself

>>Let Lyle decide himself
>>If he does let him live, give him a parasite before leaving.

>Let Lyle decide himself.
I agree to parasite, shouldn't even need a vote.

>Other
parasites

>>Leave him in the desert with water for the valen to find

>Let Lyle decide himself

>Other
Send drones to investigate the ruins.

Why, when we have every motive to want Valen to find him.

>Other
Send drones to investigate the ruins.

Sorry man but we aren't going to be able to do that with the valen actively sending search parties through the whole area

THIS.
Also when should we initiate first contact? When Lyle returns or when Theseus leaks the edited footage?