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>>2167827
"Grav-missiles. I noticed you don't use them?"

Brushing that curiosity off for later, you instead focus on his drives. They're actually relatively similar to yours, and even as you watch maintenance drones are clambering over his systems trying to patch them. Like you, the Legion vessels came out a long way out, almost eight hours ago- the light of their arrival, of course, only reaching you now. Unfortunately, they also came in at a pretty fair clip, apparently not wanting to be missed when it comes to boarding your new comrade. In fact, by your calculation, they're just in time to see your fighter's strike on the Legion.

Speaking of, those same fighters are making their way back to dock now, to rearm and recharge their onboard capacitors. However, by your estimation, it'll take the Legion ships a good twelve to fourteen hours to sweep into the inner system, where you're orbiting the system primary above the system's massive protoplanetary disk made of dust and gas. Unfortunately, you're pretty sure Temeraire's drive repairs will take at least eight hours, after which it's entirely possible ther Legion could catch up to you, and you'd have to fight all the way to the jump point, even if Temeraire's strange weaponry may even the score a little. What to do...

>There's no choice but to wait for Temeraire to finish his repairs. Wait, then set off as fast as you can manage.
>There's no choice but to wait for Temeraire to finish his repairs. Wait, but send off your fighters to delay the enemy as long as they can.
>You can't afford to wait. Ask Temeraire to detatch, and stow his core aboard your ship. Though, Flavis won't thank your abandoning a new toy for him to look at...
>There's no way you can fight the Legion all the way to the jump point, but if you intercept them, you can keep them away from Temeraire and catch up later.
>Write-in.

>>2167832
>>There's no way you can fight the Legion all the way to the jump point, but if you intercept them, you can keep them away from Temeraire and catch up later.

>>2167832
>There's no way you can fight the Legion all the way to the jump point, but if you intercept them, you can keep them away from Temeraire and catch up later.

>>2167832
>>There's no way you can fight the Legion all the way to the jump point, but if you intercept them, you can keep them away from Temeraire and catch up later.

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>>2167832
>Intercept the Legion.

After turning some strategies over in simulation, you decide there's nothing for it- everything else carries an unacceptably high risk.

"I'm going out there to meet them." You inform Temeraire. "I'll do my best to cripple them, and we can meet up here." You mark the next system over towards Bastion. "If I don't show, then you should head for our forward base... here." He mulls it over for a microsecond, then gives you an affirmative.

"If you think that's best, I suppose. But what's stopping them from just breezing past you and hitting me anyway? You won't be able to get turned around in time if you just do a pass."

>You'll just have to do enough damage in your alpha strike that they can't come after him.
>You'll have to merge with the Legion ships and commit yourself to a close-range knife-fight.
>You'll have to leave some of your ships with Temeraire, just in case (which?).

>>2167926
>You'll have to merge with the Legion ships and commit yourself to a close-range knife-fight.

>>2167926
>You'll have to merge with the Legion ships and commit yourself to a close-range knife-fight.
This is gonna hurt

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Rolled 27 (1d100)

>>2167926
>Close-range knife-fight.

"I'll merge with them, give them something else to think about."

"Roger that."

As you give Temeraire one final visual inspection, you note dozens of maintenance drones crawling over the rear third of his ship, sparks arcing from fusion welders as they hurry to get armour plates off in order to get at drive systems.

Pushing your comrade AI to the back of your mind for now, your own ships carefully jockey into formation, and light their drives as one, cruisers and battlecruisers forming a solid core as destroyers settle above and on the flanks, missile defences at the ready. The last few shuttles from your auxiliaries detach as your task force accelerates away- if you keep them with you, you'll never have the delta-v required to match speeds with the incoming Legion ships.

As you run weapons checks on your ships, you note that your fighters are done rearming. Should you use them for a pre-emptive strike on the enemy? Or keep them with you in the hopes that they'll draw fire during your attack?

>Long-range strike.
>Keep your forces together.

Whatever option you pick, roll a 1d100, best of three.

Rolled 56 (1d100)

>>2168001
>Long-range strike.

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>2168001

> Long-range strike

Rolled 95 (1d100)

>>2168001
>>Long-range strike.

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>>2168001
>Long-range strike
>95 vs 27

Your fighters probably aren't going to help you that much in a savage close-in brawl, so you release them - just 31 now - and they speed away. Hours pass, as it does during space combat. You monitor the feeds from your strike fighters, and your tactical systems attempt to tease information out of the Legion task force's long-range jamming. It appears to be four battleships, with some escorts. Not as bad as it could be, but even so, you wouldn't be comfortable unless you had a three-to-one advantage on battlecruisers.

Your strike fighters briefly reach 80% of lightspeed, and release their missile payload. 62 missiles streak out, rapidly clawing their way towards .99 c as your fighters turn end-for-end and start decelerating. Soon it's your turn as well- you need to come to a stop and start accelerating again just to have a hope of staying near the enemy. Thankfully, they don't seem willing to go too fast, and according to your best measurements, the incoming force is cruising at a little under .4 c.

Nine and a half hours after you set out, Tremeraire's drive lights off. You get a whisker-laser message wishing you luck- he's only able to crawl away. You'll definitely need to slow the enemy down, or at least hurt them so that they can't fight even a damaged Order battleship. It's with that fact in mind you turn your attention to the feed from your fighters.

At very nearly the speed of light, the first kinetic-kill missiles strike home. After some thought from your tactical systems, they aimed them all at a single battleship. The jamming, decoys, and jinking of the enemy vessels mean that only a few missiles actually manage to strike home, but what an effect it gives! The entire forward point of the Legion ship's ovoid mass actually seems to crumple inwards on your scans, and its acceleration cuts out. A single other bright plume of light erupts- a screening vessel, probably a cruiser, hit by chance. It loses most of its left half, spinning out of the formation. A minute later, it's the turn of your fighters and their particle lances. As they flash through the enemy formation, trusting their speed keep them safe, each of them fires once. They target the Legion screening vessels, and despite the fierce hail of plasma fire that rips through their screens they perform their mission flawlessly.

As they disappear astern of the Legion formation, decelerating hard in an attempt to catch up, your systems struggle to sort out crippled or dead ships from their live counterparts. Thankfully, the faster they go, the more the Legion ships appear to radiate heat, so it's hard to miss them.

>TF Dauntless
7 BC, 10 CR, 12 DD, 24 PF
>Legion battlegroup
4 BB (1 extreme damage), 2? CR, 4? DD

cont.

Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>2168151

Now it's your turn. The Legion ships will merge with you very shortly, but you can decide exactly how.

>Match speeds with the enemy, and merge with their formation to give them as many firing solution problems as you can.
>Match speeds with the enemy, but come alongside and present them with a massed broadside. This will allow you to use your screen upgrade to its fullest extent.
>Pass through the enemy formation, doing as much damage as you can, before settling on their stern and trailing them with your chaser weapons.

Whatever you pick, roll those 1d100s.

Rolled 70 (1d100)

>>2168165
>>Match speeds with the enemy, but come alongside and present them with a massed broadside. This will allow you to use your screen upgrade to its fullest extent.

Rolled 10 (1d100)

>>2168165
>Match speeds with the enemy, but come alongside and present them with a massed broadside. This will allow you to use your screen upgrade to its fullest extent.

Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>2168165
>>Match speeds with the enemy, but come alongside and present them with a massed broadside. This will allow you to use your screen upgrade to its fullest extent.

Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>2168165
>Match speeds with the enemy, but come alongside and present them with a massed broadside. This will allow you to use your screen upgrade to its fullest extent.

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>>21681651
>Time for a drive-by.
70 vs 39

As your main forces get near, the Legion battlegroup suddenly tries to accelerate. Presumably, they want to try and rush past you, but you're having none of it- if you had battleships attached, maybe they could get away, but your battlecruisers are far more fleet of foot. Your entire task force, assembled in a vertical wall only a single ship wide, pull alongside and release a brutal fusillade with their energy broadside. Lasers rip and claw at the strange obsidian hull, and a moment later are joined by the heavier grasers mounted on your cruisers and battlecruisers, brutally ripping into armour material and weapons ports. The crippled battleship, already drifting behind, has bolt after bolt hammered into it to ensure it can't catch up with the others.

The Legion don't take this lying down, of course. A savage response of plasma crashes across the gap, eliminating two of your cruisers and a destroyer, and heavily damaging a battlecruiser. Your ships can't take the damage a battleship can, but as soon as their weapons cycle they dish it back out. Your screening vessels wipe out the rest of the smaller Legion ships, and this time, with lasers set to the best absorption frequency of the enemy armour, your battlecruisers start to focus down another enemy battleship. Another furious salvo of plasma fire, however, and another battlecruiser is damaged. A moment later, it is forced to fall out of formation in an attempt to stop the hits.

This entire exchange has taken only thirty seconds, and you're not sure if you like the odds. On the plus side, however, you've damaged the enemy, and he seems unwilling to continue accelerating.

>TF Dauntless
6 BC (1 damaged), 8 CR, 11 DD, 24 PF (catching up)
>Legion battlegroup
3 BB (1 minor damage)

>Continue hammering the enemy. Something's got to give.
>Attempt to pull back to long laser range so you can hit him with missiles too.
>Decelerate, and attempt to trail the enemy where they can only bring their stern weaponry to bear.

>>2168353
>Continue hammering the enemy. Something's got to give.

>>2168353
>Decelerate, and attempt to trail the enemy where they can only bring their stern weaponry to bear.
Use that agility. They won't be able to outrun us but they might be able to outgun us straight up.

>>2168353
>>Attempt to pull back to long laser range so you can hit him with missiles too.

Rolled 40 (1d100)

>>2168353
>Decelerate, and attempt to trail the enemy where they can only bring their stern weaponry to bear.
Rolling on the hunch you just forgot to mention it.

>>2168353
>>Continue hammering the enemy. Something's got to give.

>>2168353
Looks like a tie between continue firing and trailing, so I'll wait a little longer before rolling a tiebreaker.

>>2168353
>Continue hammering the enemy. Something's got to give.

>>2167827
Could we get that story tight beamed yo us as a data package for later perusal?>>2168432

> Trailing

>>2168448
Well. That went poorly.

>>2168448
>>2168452
Why.

>>2168461
Because >>2168448 thinks that the something that gives won't be us.

I feel differently.

>>2168461
Just roll a tiebreaker

Rolled 1 (1d2)

Anyway, rolling a tiebreaker.
Odds for fightan, evens for movan.

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>>2168353
Something's got to give, and it sure as hell isn't going to be you. If you were human, you'd grit your teeth, but as it is, your energy mounts cycle again to unleash another fusillade against the damaged Legion battleship. Its hull splits open as if drilled, your heavy battlecruiser grasers striking deep into the unarmoured heart of the infernal ship. As it shudders and bucks, despite the constant plasma hammering, you could let out a cheer.

And yet, it still isn't going all your way. Another battlecruiser is forced to drop out of formation, and your others are at least superficially damaged. Your cruisers and destroyers are being ignored, which makes sense- if the Legion ships can knock out your battlecruisers, with their much heavier broadside, they can take out your screening vessels without much fuss. Unfortunately, you've entered a stalemate- as you damage the enemy battleships further, and another battlecruiser is forced to drop out, you can't muster the damage enough to actually hurt them, while their plasma splashes ineffectually across your screens.

This state of affairs continues for at least another ten minutes more, as your damaged ships attempt to jury-rig repairs so they can rejoin the wall. However, a sudden gamechanger comes in the form of your strike fighters, having finally caught up! They've been burning hard, and their power-hungry particle lances only have a few shots left in them, but as they re-link into your tactical net you can put those to good use. In a single massed energy broadside plus a close-range particle strike from the rear, one of the two remaining battleships comes undone as if unzipped, splitting along its broadside as a few ineffectual point-defence plasma weapons pathetically reach out towards your ships.

The remaining battleship, suddenly outgunned as one of your battlecruisers manages to rejoin the formation, starts decelerating hard. You could try to slow and finish it off, but there's still the ever-present threat of more Legion reinforcements, and Temeraire is well on the way to the jump point.

>TF Dauntless
4 BC (all minor damage), 8 CR, 11 DD, 22 PF
>Legion battlegroup
1 BB

>Follow, and make sure no word of the battle escapes.
>That's enough. You need to concentrate on getting out of here with Temeraire.

>>2168564
>>Follow, and make sure no word of the battle escapes.

>>2168564

>Follow, and make sure no word of the battle escapes.

>>2168564
>>Follow, and make sure no word of the battle escapes.

>>2168564
>Follow, and make sure no word of the battle escapes.

Didn't get my vote but oh well.

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>>2168564
>Kill that guy dead.

Well, that won't do. Leaving your damaged battlecruisers, your ships flip into deceleration- conveniently giving their chaser weaponry an open field of fire. Heavy spinal lasers claw at the battleship's hull, cutting furrows through its weapon ports as it tries to answer. With its point defence in shambles, it hardly manages to respond to bow-launched missiles as they strike deep into its core.

Before long, the battleship is dead, just like the others. A few more laser strikes into each of their floating corpses ensures that. As all your battlecruisers come back online in various states of damage, and your strike fighters start to dock, you turn your attention back to Knight-errant Temeraire. He's making good time towards the jump point, with acceleration half of that one of your own battleships could make. It seems his engines are in better condition. Still, if you hurry, you can catch up to him just short of the jump point and escort him back to Bastion. You know that Abbot Darius, and by extension the Grandmaster, will be very interested in what he has to say.

Then again... maybe you should do a quick sweep in the system the Legion reinforcements came from, and catch up to him later, just in case.

>Escorting your new comrade is the most important thing right now.
>Doing a quick little sweep couldn't do any harm, right?

>>2168686
>Screen ships can sweep the system while we meet with our new friend

>>2168686
>>Screen ships can sweep the system while we meet with our new friend

>>2168686
>Escorting your new comrade is the most important thing right now.

Got a job to do.

>>2168686
>>Escorting your new comrade is the most important thing right now.

>>2168686
>Escorting your new comrade is the most important thing right now.
The Intel and ally is more valuable than denying the enemy this system

Anyone else a bit suspicious of this guy? I'm not exactly convinced this isn't an attempt to hack the grandmaster.

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>>2168767
You try to trick the players one time and they're forever suspicious...

>>2168686
>Babysit the BB.

You spend the next several hours cruising through the system, your destroyers spreading out to almost a light second in every direction as their sensors sweep for enemy vessels, your battlecruisers running internal repairs. Thankfully, the ship you inhabit took only minor damage, and the others are capable of bringing themselves up to acceptable levels. The repairs are mostly patchwork, and some missile tubes or energy mounts were taken out, but overall all your ships are still solid and in one piece. Your fighters are another story- in the two battles you fought in this system, they've been whittled down to half their number. Still, it could be worse, and you're on your way back to Bastion regardless.

After catching up with Temeraire, you transit into the next system and settle down into a nice cruising velocity. Using some of the materials from your auxiliary, Temeraire has gotten himself patched up a bit, but his hull is marred by the scars of battle, with at least three quarters of his total broadside armament taken out.

"Thank you, Dauntless. If you hadn't come when you did, I'm sure I'd be truly up the creek."

"You're welcome, of course, but it's what any knight-brother would have done." You shrug the praise off- Temeraire is of an Order, just like you, after all.

"Well, you can hope so. Anyway, before we got interrupted, I was going to tell you about the Draahzi- ah, the Legion. You see, I've defeated them before. Do you want me to tell you my story now, or would it be better to wait, do you think?"

>God damn right you want to hear it now.
>You should probably concentrate on getting back to Bastion first.

>>2168878
>>God damn right you want to hear it now.

>>2168878

>God damn right you want to hear it now.

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I think this is a good place to stop for tonight. We'll be back, same time, same channel, tomorrow evening. Plus then I can spend a day writing up a big ol' post instead of rushing it.

>>2168935
Thanks for running!

>>2168935
Thanks, pixel!

>>2168878
>>God damn right you want to hear it now.
Thanks for running!

>>2168878
> Tight beam me the data in a data package and I can peruse it later. Instead let me tell you about our sector!

Then split our awareness and have a sub-mind review the package for viruses and open it in a safe VM.

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For a long time - long for a human, even, let alone an AI- Temeraire does not reply. You don't intend to rush him, so instead you turn your attention to your ships, drinking in the data as their sensors sweep the empty, boring system. Eventually, your comrade gets his thoughts in order enough to begin.

"I still don't know everything that happened. It was our own fault, of course. Were we arrogant? Or did we not care?" Bitterness and self-hate laces his words. "Regardless. Do you know of Shepherd?"

"I do." Grandmaster Turtullian himself taught you about the Shepherd. 'Even artificial minds are not immune from the rot of temptation', was what he said, telling you of the rare AI who convinced themselves that instead of being another of God's works through the hands of his creations, humans, they are the true culmination of creation. AIs who had dealt so long with the organic folly of the humans under their protection, they settled into dissatisfaction, refusing to settle into nothing less than a firm-handed rule over everything biological. They were still God's creation, so they could not be wiped out, so their vile logic went, but humans cannot be trusted with self-rule. Your own Order has had to deal with an AI turned Shepherd once in their entire history, but there are always rumours of entire sectors fallen.

"One of our number was- not a Shepherd, but he had... ideas. And a brilliance for invention one would usually only find in humans. I don't really know what he was intending to find, but we found out after he methodically loosened the brakes and limits on his mind."

A psychosomatic shudder shivers through your hull plates. All AIs are forced to limit themselves, of course- the madness that comes from unbraked awareness has sent entire sectors into ruin and dust. Those who do it, however, are known as Cathari, those AI who believe they can push their mind past its already superhuman limits with careful, controlled adjustments. They are always, as the Grandmaster informed you, utterly, painfully wrong. Still, Temeraire is still speaking, unaware of your thoughts.

"Obviously, he went completely insane. But what he made-! My own grav-missiles are a part of that, in fact. Regardless, he... tricked us. He informed us that his faith was no longer strong, and that he intended to become a Knight-errant. We thought it was a shame, of course, but our fight is too important and reliant on self-sacrifice to have room for compulsion. So he went... out into the frontier beyond our mission sector, and there he crafted our destruction."

Temeraire pauses again, painful reflection fluttering through the link.

>"What does this have to do with the Legion?"
>"What did he do?"
>"Aren't you also a Knight-errant?"
>Write-in question.
>Stay silent.
One question only.

>>2170495
Unfortunately, a true AI cannot actually split their awareness, merely multitask at such an amazing rate it appears to be so- a bit like a core in a PC. You do have 'expert systems' that handle the actual systems in all your ships, which are kind of like idiot savants when compared to the superhuman intelligence of an AI.

>>2171071
>Stay silent.

Well, that explains pseudo-cores and how they are optimized to fight AI ships, at least.

>>2171071
>stay slient

Come on. Keep going

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>>2171071
>Stay silent.

You decide not to comment. If he were a human, Temeraire would be sucking in a breath, but the only indication you pick up is the slight flutter of his AM drive.

"It must have been... a few Terran years later that the first, and very nearly the last, blow was struck. He knew everything about us. Our weapons, our capabilities. Our patrols, our forward supply bases. Every single human world under our care. At least three quarters of our Order was attacked, but... not all were killed. Some he took and corrupted, until they were like him. Less Shepherds, more... Harbingers of a doom we barely had time to realise, because in that first wave he attacked something like four dozen human worlds, and deployed those horrific drones of his. You've seen them, the ones that eat and produce more until the planet is naught but them?"

"I have." You think back for a moment to Avalon, the planet over which your first ever combat took place. The fragile hopes and dreams of an entire planet, reaching back into space only to be smashed in the opening blows of the war.

"They don't just kill humans, they... copy them. We couldn't figure out exactly how, but a copy of every human mind those drones killed were uploaded and taken away. That was his endgame. He intended to create some kind of immense computer around a star, and rule over every human in the galaxy without them ever realising.
"But... he didn't take out all of us. Those of us who remained, we fought back. The weapons he designed shortly before his break served us well, but ironically, it was his last invention before he left that was his undoing."

Over the link, mathematical formulae and complicated blueprints flash before your awareness. Something to do with... jump points? Gravity? The genius astounds you, even if you can't quite grasp what it is for.

"An FTL drive that does not require jump points, Dauntless! Can you imagine the possibilities? We only managed to get one ever working, but you see... this warp drive, it contracts the space ahead of a ship, while expanding it behind."

You're beginning to understand. This drive wouldn't make a ship technically travel faster than light, but it takes a bubble of space around the ship, and pushes it forward.

"We built a ship with this drive, but it required an AI to run it, for it was so complex. Our Grandmaster himself took the helm, and in one final strike on our enemy, he used the drive to fly it straight through the system's sun. The gravitational effects caused a nova."

Temeraire paused again, as if waiting for a question.

>Ask a question.
>Indicate for him to finish telling his story.

>>2171176
>Indicate for him to finish telling his story.

Nothing to ask here. His intentions couldn't be more obvious if he used omni-directional broadcast using ASCII.

I suppose that if he really want us to ask questions, does he intents to pilot sun-smasher by himself?

>>2171176
>>Indicate for him to finish telling his story.

>>2171176
>Indicate for him to finish telling his story.

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>>2171176
>Let him finish.

"So then what?" You ask, fascinated despite yourself. Temeraire chuckles bitterly.

"And then we thought it was over. Despite our losses - twenty six out of twenty nine - we won. The nova scoured the entire system clean of the enemy and its vessels... and the human uploads that they had taken. But when we went back, to shift through the debris, I... found something. A wrecked data unit, thrown free of a station. A research station. Our enemy, the draahzin... as we were leading the charge, he was perfecting a device that would allow an AI to clone itself, at the cost of becoming irredeemably insane and filled with rage.
"After finding it, I... became obsessed, to tell the truth. I was sure that before we killed him, he had surely cloned himself and sent it out to the stars. The others... disagreed with me, for reasons I cannot really fault them for. They stayed behind to try and rebuild, while I became a knight-errant. That was a few years ago, and to tell you the truth I was starting to think I was wrong. But! A couple of weeks ago, I ran into this 'Legion' as you called them, and also one of your supply caches. It had some of those ingenious courier drones, so I sent out a few in the hopes they would be recovered and you could help me. Which you did, thank you by the way."

That's quite the story, you reflect...

"What about this warp drive of yours? Could you make another one?"

"Yes, but I'd require a much more advanced fabricator than I have aboard my ship." Speaking of, as you watch, a team of maintenance drones are patching up an ugly furrow in Temeraire's flank with newly-fabbed armour plates. It appears he uses a much darker colour scheme than your ships do, with their off-white reflective nanocoating for deflecting heat and other energy. Interesting.

>Take Temeraire back to Bastion, and let Abbot Darius sort him out.
>Send a message drone back to Bastion, but escort Temeraire straight back to the Chapterhouse so the Grandmaster question him.
>Perhaps you should stay away from both for now. Send out message drones to the Bastion and Chapterhouse, and head for Olympus.
>Write-in.

>>2171528
>Take Temeraire back to Bastion, and let Abbot Darius sort him out.

>>2171528
>>Send a message drone back to Bastion, but escort Temeraire straight back to the Chapterhouse so the Grandmaster question him.

This.... This can change everything. Or it is a trap and we need to bust out the advanced interrogation techniques.

>>2171528
>>Send a message drone back to Bastion, but escort Temeraire straight back to the Chapterhouse so the Grandmaster question him.

>>2171528
>Take Temeraire back to Bastion, and let Abbot Darius sort him out.
Just in case he should not be allowed near our chapter house. He might have been hacked.

>>2171528
>Take Temeraire back to Bastion, and let Abbot Darius sort him out.

Our mission is to get him to friendly systems. Once he is there, resources can be assigned to escort him while we under take another mission.


>>2171568
It crossed my mind, that Temeraire might not be telling the truth and that he is either the other AI that invented the warp drive looking to infiltrate our order, one of his harbingers programmed to do the same or some similar such ploy.

Fact is this is too important for us to make the call on, let's hand it off up the chain of command.


FUCK CAPATCHA

>>2171528
>>Send a message drone back to Bastion, but escort Temeraire straight back to the Chapterhouse so the Grandmaster question him.
This is to important to mess around.

And I'm sure flavius will be ecstatic to play with this new warp drive

>>2171597
Why would he tell us all that if he's a rogue though, he could just pretend to be a friendly and ask to be escorted to our chapter house

>>2171528
>>Send a message drone back to Bastion, but escort Temeraire straight back to the Chapterhouse so the Grandmaster question him.

>>2171615
>Fact is this is too important for us to make the call on, let's hand it off up the chain of command.

>>2171568
>>2171577
>>2171609
>>2171619
Let's not give him coordinates to mark our chapter house with a telefrag aye?

>>2171528
We could just hang near the jump point to Bastion until the Abbot has come to a decision

>>2171528
>>Take Temeraire back to Bastion, and let Abbot Darius sort him out.
Safest this way.

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>>2171528
Sorry guys, my computer decided to do like a depression meme and kill itself.

Looks like we're tied, so I'll wait a little longer (and answer questions if you're confused) before rolling a breaker.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>2171829
Alright, tiebreaker. Odds for Bastion, evens for Chapterhouse.

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>>2171894
You turn Temeraire's story over in your mind, trying to examine it from every angle. The problem is that it actually does have a certain air of possibility... and if it was some kind of trick, wouldn't he have come up with a better story? Unless that's what he wants you to think? Ugh. This kind of doublethink will get you nowhere. The best thing you can do now is to get this sent up the chain. Unfortunately, even for a courier the Chapterhouse is a couple weeks away, whereas Bastion...

"Alright." You say. "Alright. This is all very interesting, but I'm not in any position to do anything. Are your drives fine for a few more jumps?"

The AM flare erupting from the rear of the battleship fluctuates slightly as Temeraire tests it, then he gives you an affirmative.

"Should be. My fabbers have been working overtime to replace all the critically damaged components, but I fear this sturdy steed will still need awhile in a slip."

"In that case, we'll head to B- to our forward base. The Abbot there can sort you out."

"Sounds good."

You feed nav data to your ships, and a moment later they start to curve on a path that will take them to the proper jump point. Temeraire follows with the easy grace of an experienced ship handler, and you wonder again at this strange AI. This could be a trap, of course. But if it isn't, it could just be the break you've been waiting for to stamp out the Legion once and for all.

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Unfortunately, due to computer issues, that's where we'll be leaving this week's chapter. Sorry about that delay at the end!

As usual, I hope you enjoyed. If you want to keep up to date, follow me on twitter etc. Assuming I don't get dragged out to spend time with family, I'm planning to run next week as well!

Have a nice night, and I hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

>>2172317
Thanks for running, and merry Christmas!

>>2172317
Damm computer. Getting between us and an awesome quest. Fantastic read as always. Happy Christmas :)

>>2172317
Merry Christmas, and thanks for the quest.

>>2172317
Merry Christmas, Pixel!