Friday, December 30, 2016

CH3: Breakout, Part 11

The Raid on the Urban Palace

Even as IntSec was cracking down on the Vanguardists, armed elements of Republican forces in the wastes returned to Elysium along well-established smuggling routes. Once in the city, they linked up with local Republican cadres, and on January 4th, 5027, raided the Urban Palace of the Autarch, where MuniPrin Lee Ludei was being held.

The Urban Palace had been built by the preceding dynasty, and had largely fallen out of use during the Ludei dynasty, who preferred the Third Palace and the New Palace. However, the Autarchs still found uses for it, such as housing noble prisoners in relative comfort. The revolutionaries cut the power to the palace, killed several guards, and managed to exfiltrate afterwards, fleeing into the waste, but MuniPrin Lee and MuniPrix Sara were killed in the fighting.


CH3: Breakout, Part 10

“We're through!” Pel shouts over the roar of the wind. The outer airlock door lies in pieces behind him, the inner door cracked open by a crowbar. One of his men pulls it the rest of the way open while Pel and three others cover it with their rifles, but there's no one on the other side.

The original plan was for Mara, Fir, and the MuniPrin to meet them at the lock, but given that they had to cut the lock open, the original plan is obviously no longer a viable program. And he can hear gunfire coming from deeper in the Palace. Pel points to two of his soldiers and signals – stay here – and then to four more – follow me. He moves forward, heading towards the sound of the guns.


Sunday, December 13, 2015

Review: New Cthluhu 2

I recently finished New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird, edited by Paula Guran.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Review: The Cult of Alien Gods

I recently finished The Cult of Alien Gods: H. P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture, by Jason Colavito, which I highly recommend.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Review: The Annihilation Score

Finished The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross, the latest of the Laundry Files.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

CH3: Breakout, Part 9


The surface roads are already almost deserted. The crawler has to actually slow down to avoid reaching their turn before the storm. They hit the waypoint just as the wall of sand descends, the flying grit choking off all light and sound, nothing past the windshield but a solid red-brown mass.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

CH3: Breakout, Part 8


The Campaign of the Vanguardists



The Vanguardists were a break-away faction of Zealots, who felt the Zealot leadership were insufficiently vigorous in their approach. The Vanguardist faction believed that, while the lower classes must necessarily furnish the mass and troops of the revolution, they could not move by themselves, but must be moved by a “vanguard” of professional revolutionaries. In order for that vanguard to secure the leadership of the lower classes, it must demonstrate its fitness for that leadership, by beginning the revolution before obtaining the leadership. To that end, they planned, prepared, and carried out a campaign of assassination and terrorism targeting the municipal aristocracy.