Fade in
INT – DAY – Tajemnica Bridge
The usual suspects are in their places. Stenson stands in the doorway.
Helton: I’m just the captain. YOU two are the flying geniuses. What do YOU want to do to put her through her paces? Continue reading
Author Archives: Rolf
He Gets It
To all you fellow racists redneck Tea-partiers and haters, who only opposes the Obama-sariat because you are racists haters (yes, there might be a tad-bit of sarcasm there), I give you a guy who gets it. Nothing new, just well-presented.
I’d sure vote for him over any of the candidates I’ve seen run in my district in the last twenty years. I’d prefer a straight-up libertarian, but he’d be a vast improvement over the statist we have now.
The stars Came Back – Pause
Gotta pause a bit. Stomach bug. End of school. Other half out of town. Job apps. A bit of writing, rewriting, and editing. I will be back. Don’t worry, I won’t leave it hanging like this for too long. It WILL get done. Just not in the next week.
In the mean time: Continue reading
Gun Song – Fred Eaglesmith – Time to get a gun
Happy Friday. Busy, so not much of a write-up.
Alternative country singer Fred Eaglesmith.
The Stars Came Back -098- Six Cores
Fade in
INT – DAY – Engineering
Stenson and his team look tired, unshaven, and excited.
They have clearly been hard at work a while, and are looking forward to a real test. The readouts are all in the green. Most are steady, some are fluctuating a bit. The sound of the drives is an intense, slightly pulsing hum. Stenson nods in approval at what he sees. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -097- Laredo
Fade in
INT – NIGHT – Tajemnica Bridge
Quiritis, Helton, Allonia, Bipasha, Kaushik
Kaushik and Helton are in space suits, visors open. Helton at command, Quiritis at helm, Allonia is at sensors, Kaushik weapons, Bipasha at com. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -096- Visitors
Fade in
INT – DAY – Cargo Bay
Helton is standing next to Quinn, Lag and Kat. Helton is partially clad in space armor, looking like a high-tech cross between a space-suit and medieval head-to-toe articulated plate armor, and it looks like he’s trying to get the rest of it on. It looks both very serviceable and stylish. Quinn is dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, and a dirty bandage on his thigh is visible below the shorts. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -095- BFR
Fade in
INT – DAY – Cargo bay
The ramp is down, and another cargo truck is backing in. Stenson and Alvarez and another dozen of his trainees are there. The truck slowly lifts and deposits a mid-sized container onto the cargo bay deck with a deep booming sound as it sets down. It is apparently fairly heavy. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -094- Translation
Fade in
INT – DAY – Officers mess
Helton sits, staring at the book, absently stirring a cup of tea. On the table-top (the whole thing of which is a screen) appear snippets and pieces and tables of text, some in English, some in the Futhark- and Bengali-like letters of the Planet-Mover text. More is scattered about on wall screens. He closes his eyes, rubs them, and leans back in his seat tiredly, sighing in frustration. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -093- Philosophy
Fade in
INT – NIGHT – Helton’s cabin
The door is closed. He sits at his desk, kicked back in his chair, feet up on the bed, and his pistol belt hanging from a hook on the back of the door. On the desk, the book is open, under a light, surrounded by clutter. On a screen on the wall is a ship avatar. It is a boy, not much older than Quinn. He appears to be sitting on a comfortable limb of a tree, leaning back against the trunk, with the branch sticking out amid a whole forest of trees, branches, and greenery. He wears an eye patch, and clothes similar to the uniform Allonia made for Quinn. Continue reading
Gun Song – Shotgun – Lightnin’ Hopkins
Classic old blues song. Kind’a sad, simple, tells a story. A twist at the end that a lot of modern rappers could learn from. Enjoy, or at least have a listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCqEOboRctY
Lightnin’ came in at #71 of all time great guitarists on Rolling Stone’s list. Blues are not normally not my favorite genre of music, but there are some gems out there.
The Stars Came Back -092- History
Fade in
INT – Helton’s cabin aboard Tajemnica
Helton sits at his desk, looking at the book. A small camera is also positioned above it. On a screen on the wall is an image of the book text, with a partial translation next to it. The door is open, and the slight hum of the various ship’s systems are the only sounds. Helton looks like he is examining the text and thinking intently. Lag walks up to the door, and raps gently with a knuckle. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -091- Broadside
Fade in
INT – DAY – Engineering
Stenson and Alvarez are at consoles, watching and monitoring things. Status bars are shifting all over the place, mostly trending toward greens.
Alvarez: Jesus, look at THAT! Never seen power flows that high on the ground.
Stenson: Cross linking and synchronizing the power systems from the tanks. THAT should give us a serious boost. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back-090- Offensive Team
Fade in
EXT – DAY – Expeditionary force parade ground.
A large parade-ground / landing field. Mostly perfect grass, with various concrete landing pads and roadway / taxiway strips. Arrayed are 26 hulking, angular grav tanks (four sets of six in desert camo paint, and two gaudy chromed tanks out in front). Each tank turret has a long heavy rail-gun barrel on one side, a long 120mm main gun center, a light rail-gun on the other side, and the stubby bump of a 15 megajoule laser on top. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -089- Authorization
Fade in
INT – DAY – Large meeting room
Lt Kat and a dozen very serious-looking people are examining a large display showing the AARAS data that Lag and Helton saw earlier. On the walls are large screens with images of the destroyed base, the bodies of Cooper and the compliance monitor, Quinn’s injured leg and other injured soldiers, pictures showing hit patterns, including the vast number of blast splashes atop Tajemnica, and the text of intercepted messages. To one side there are screens with the Raptus Regaliter Base Col and Lag on them. It looks like a hastily-called meeting that’s been going on for a little while, to judge by the informal dress, scattered personal computers, water carafes and glasses, and various body postures of the participants. Kat is standing, presenting crisply. Continue reading
The Stars Come Back -088- Pickup
EXT – DAY – a large tan expanse of open ground with scattered grass and bushes.
A small convoy of wheeled military vehicles roll through across the plain at high speed. They are in a loose cluster, disorderly. They are mostly APCs, a few fast wheeled gun platforms. Guys and gear are hanging on the sides as they race along kicking up a lot of dust. There is a sudden explosion not far from one, but it doesn’t swerve or anything. They are just charging along, fleeing the shots being fired at extreme range from somewhere behind.
[Note: Music along the lines of Two Steps From Hell’s To Glory would roll along with them fairly well]. Continue reading
Gun Song – Six String Gun – Sean de Burca
Someone I’d never heard of, sort of the other end of the spectrum from the Beatles or Ernie Ford. Interesting style. Decent acoustic guitar.
If you want to know more about him and his music, http://seandeburca.wordpress.com/ would seem to be the place to start. As always, all honest thoughts welcome.
The Stars Came Back -087- Riposte
Cut to
INT – DAY – Tajemnica Bridge
Quiritis has her normal calm look on hers face as she works the controls, herding the starship through the twisting and narrow (for a seventy meter starship) canyon, and canyon walls fly past on the screens in their “glass cockpit” view. She rolls it this way and that, trying to keep one eye on the terrain, and one on the path laid out in the tactical display showing the planned path. No-one else looks calm, they are all white knuckled and tense-looking, watching things whiz by dangerously close. Suddenly, a red dot appears nearly over them in the tactical display. It is right at the top of a spur of rock sticking out into the looping canyon they are following. Quiritis pulls back on the yoke hard. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -086- Clear for action
Fade in.
EXT – DAY – on the plain not far from the badlands
View is low angle, watching the speeding ship approach and race by, one landing gear strut still stubbornly hanging down, partially extended. Continue reading
The Stars Came Back -085- Checklist
Fade in.
INT – DAY – Tajemnica Bridge
The screen countdown shows 00:39, 0:38
Everyone in the bridge is seated and strapped in. Helton looks at his checklist book, still only half competed, in front of him. Continue reading