Mako in the Mountains

"This is a beautiful planet, Commander," Tali said softly. "The trees, the snow... it reminds me of the photos I have seen of my homeworld, from before the geth rebellion drove us into exile."

"Ha, ha," Wrex snorted derisively. "Bet you wouldn't like to be tossed into it!"

Tali turned her head to look at Wrex; her expression was unreadable beneath the breathing-mask she always wore. Wrex just laughed at her.

"Cut the chatter," Commander Shepard ordered. "We're on a mission, as you seem to have trouble remembering."


The three were together in the Mako, more formally known as the M35 Mako Infantry Fighting Vehicle: a self-sufficient, six-wheeled tank, equipped with quad jump-jets, coaxial machinegun, and 155mm mass-accelerator cannon. A state-of-the-art vehicle, it could move up to 45 mph and was light enough to be airdropped from several meters up without damage; a system of shields and armour plating protected it from anything short of heavy weapons platforms, which would be hard-pressed to hit it due to the aforementioned speed. Upon its side was the name NORMANDY, the ship that housed and serviced it: but in the Normandy this Mako did not rest. Instead, it rolled over the slopes of an alien world, en route to a distant destination.

"What... is our objective for this mission, Commander?" Tali asked politely. "You were rather unclear on the matter when you suggested that we form the away team."

"The Normandy's sensors, when scanning this planet from orbit, discovered a cluster of alloys and radiation-leakage closely resembling the wreckage of a crashed probe," Shepard replied.
"We're going there to recover whatever we can; with reports of geth activity in this sector, there's a good chance that the probe will have useful data on them. And with things as they are, we need all the data we can get."

"So I'm here to deal with the recovery of the probe's electronics," Tali said. "What's Wrex coming along for? He's not exactly a technical expert."

"I'm here to do the shooting," Wrex growled, cradling a shotgun against his huge, armoured frame. The shotgun was nearly engulfed by his bulk.

Both Tali and Shepard responded at once. Shepard barked sharply: "Put that thing away, I don't want it deployed that close to me in a confined space." Tali, speaking over her commander, asked Wrex "What, exactly, are you expecting to shoot out here?"


The Mako crested a small hill, snow spraying from beneath its wheels. The crashed probe was visible less than a quarter-mile away - and significantly closer than that, three hulking figures erupted from beneath the snow, firing flurries of pulse-rounds at the Mako as larger weapons warmed up.

"Ambush!" Shepard cried, throwing the Mako backwards as Tali struggled to ready and aim the main cannon. "Geth Armatures!" Armatures - weapons of war, standing over fifteen feet tall on their four legs, more than a match for most tanks. The Mako was better than most tanks - but, even in hands as skilled as Shepard's, it was taking a beating from the armatures' weapons, as well as those of the geth infantry that had emerged from the surrounding snowbanks. Three sizzling energy-orbs emerged from the armatures' heads, one impacting on the Mako's shields and casting a electric aurora about the vehicle; Shepard returned fire with cannon and machine-gun, and saw one of the armatures fall to the ground, shields broken and chromed limbs mangled. The two remaining armatures fired again; Shepard employed the jump-jets to evade their primary attacks only to collide with a rocket fired by one of the geth foot-soldiers. "Shields at half strength!" Tali reported tensely, trying to monitor vital systems and operate the machinegun at the same time. Wrex watched, tossing his shotgun up and down.

Shepard continued the fight, trying to pull back so as to better exploit the Mako's manueverability; the geth worked to prevent any such move, boxing in the Mako with rockets and energy blasts while constantly worrying it with pulse-rifle rounds. Tali watched the shield indicator creep downwards with no little concern. But to count the Mako out so soon would be a dreadful mistake: the cannon belched relativistic mass once, twice, three times, and sent another armature flying in a hundred directions as its shields failed and its metal body disintegrated. Shepard focused fire on the remaining armature, now closing on it to get a clearer shot; and another unseen rocket caught the Mako from the side, sending it crashing over the ridge and onto its back.

"It flipped?" Shepard asked incredulously, strapped upside-down into the driver's seat, still staring at the display screen. "I didn't think a Mako could flip!"

Wrex slapped the release button on Shepard's restraints, letting her collapse onto the Mako's ceiling. "They'll be here any minute!" he said, gesturing. "If we stay here, we're sitting ducks. Time to move!"


Tali, Wrex, and Shepard spilled out of the overturned Mako, falling into feet-deep snow. The latter two produced weapons - Tali drew a blue pistol from her hip, while Shepard unpacked an silvery assault rifle. Wrex's shotgun, characteristically, had never left his hands. All three looked around, seeing snow, trees, boulders, more snow - and the Geth, coming over the ridge.

"Take cover!" Shepard shouted, and matched words to actions, setting off to the nearest rock structure as swiftly as one can through six-foot-deep-snow. Tali followed, snapping off shots with her pistol at the Geth as their pulse-rifle bolts rained down around them, melting snow and crackling off their personal shields. Tali uttered a constant litany of curses as she slogged towards cover: "Filthy, unclean, vile, treacherous, murdering metal abominations..."

Wrex cast a cruel, recessed eye in the direction of the Geth, and decided not to follow his team-mates just yet. Pressing his back against the Mako, he leaned outwards and lined his shotgun up with a cluster of distant geth. Pulse-fire came his way, but the Mako's still-intact shields absorbed the bulk of it. Wrex took his time, and then slowly, almost tenderly, squeezed the shotgun's trigger.

Immediately, the weapon bucked backwards, emitting a hideous roar. Wrex winced; the geth at which he'd aimed vanished in a cherry-red fireball, their half-melted limbs and weapons cartwheeling away. The volume of fire coming from the geth slackened, given pause both by the demonstrated potency of Wrex's high-explosive rounds and the cloud of steam that they had spread (in the immediate wake of the explosion) across the upper ridge. Wrex snorted, holding his shotgun at arm's length - even in the freezing-cold climate, the air around it shimmered with heat - and hurled it towards the cluster of rocks where Shepard and Tali had found cover. (It landed in a thick snowbank, somewhat lessened by the heat generated by the weapon.) Then Wrex followed his shotgun, removing an assault rifle from his back and firing sporadically as he went. Tali and Shepard covered him with suppressing fire on his lolloping way.


"What now, Commander?" Wrex asked.

"I'm not too worried about these guys," Shepard told him. Pulse-rounds left shimmering lines in the air overhead. "Geth infantry aren't much of a threat, even in these numbers, even on foot. Their armor and shields are too frail. If we just keep whittling down their numbers, we should be fine. I'm just worried about-"

With an unearthly wail, the remaining geth Armature announced that it had finally made its way over the ridge. Blue energy gathered around its head.

"-that," Shepard finished. Pulling at Tali, who had taken the opportunity for a few last-pot shots at a red-armoured geth, Shepard shouted, "Down!"

The Armature fired, and the away team's cover vanished in a brilliant blue explosion. The shockwave tossed them backwards; ten thousand shards of stone flew in each direction, arcing with electric light. A renewed wave of small-arms fire followed.

"If that monstrosity fires again, we're dead," Tali told Shepard. "There's no cover nearly close enough - even assuming that one of the heavy-weapons infantrygeth doesn't get any clever ideas before then. Do you have a plan?"

Shepard grinned fiercely. "As it so happens, I do. Let's try something along the lines of-"

Tali, rising to a kneel from behind the broken rubble that now served the away team for cover, hurled an small, blinking projectile towards the Armature. It shot towards the war-machine as though magnetically attracted, and then vanished in a tiny explosion. Electromagnetic chaos followed; the nearest geth infantry were entirely disabled, and the others (along with the armature) were dazed, disoriented and half-blind.

"Now!" shouted Shepard, and Wrex and Tali together with Shepard each hurled an hand-sized, disc-shaped explosive from the waist. They hit the Armature (save for Wrex's, which fell to the snow nearby) and detonated moments later; the flame did little more than scorch the body of the machine, but annihilated its shields. A small crater was left in the ground where Wrex's ill-aimed grenade had fallen, but enough of its blast had impacted the Armature to do the job.

Even before the grenades had hit, Shepard had turned away. Now holding a sniper rifle, the Commander turned back - took aim, and fired. The first shot missed; the second did not. A relativistic pellet of iron blew a foot-thick hole in the Armature's neck, and slowly the immense machine toppled, paralyzed from the neck down by the shot to its main control cluster. It was finished.

The rest was just mopping up.


An hour and a half later, the Mako disgorged its passengers in front of the crashed probe that had been the object of the mission. "It's of even greater importance now," Shepard told Wrex and Tali. "The geth were here to lay an ambush - there must be something important in this probe for them to guard it with such force."

Tali knelt, examining the control panel on the exterior of the probe. Carefully, she manipulated the ancient electronics, repairing frayed wires and broken logic boards with supplies that she'd brought.

When she seemed to have finished, she paused. "Well?" Shepard asked. "Find out what's inside."

Tali opened the probe - and recoiled.

"What is it?" Shepard and Wrex asked, startled. "Another geth trap-?"

"No," Tali told them, attempting to reassure. "There's nothing dangerous in there - nor anything useful. Just a sea of omni-goo."

Shepard's shoulders slumped. Wrex put a hand on them, saying the only comforting words he could think of: "Well, there's no harm in having more omni-goo."

Wrex, as one might easily surmise, was not very good at comforting.

[Started all the way back in 2008 - this one's ancient!)

Nicholas Photocollection, Pt. 1

Things that don't deserve their own stories, but are lovely enough to have a place on the blag all the same. (Some of the readers will remember seeing them in meatspace. Fear not - here they are immortalized!)




The Nikolas seems to engender these kinds of failures by his mere passage.

And now, a Kelsey moment.

The Wind Awoken

(Written from an unsecured wi-fi network, in a restaurant by the name of "Restaurant". Thanks, unsecured wi-fi people! You're a boon to all mankind.)

Ethan trudged along the snowy road, his shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast. Sorrow was his lot; he had no respite from his troubles.

Then came a trumpeting cry! Ethan turned, but too slowly; before he saw the cause of the noise, he was snatched away, grabbed by a green-clad youth hurtling just feet above the earth. They spiraled into the distance; in their wake, snow swirled upwards, and then slowly settled again. Silence prevailed.

Ethan was rather alarmed at his unexpected abduction. He attempted to query his abductor on the subject, but the deafening winds whirling about them precluded any response. In less than a minute, the flight ended, a vast distance traveled; their destination was a small raft, bobbing in a vast sea. The sun shone, the waters gleamed; and ominous, swirling clouds approached from the east.

Again Ethan asked, "Why have you done this?" But again he gained no response; the youth, hurriedly, retrieved sword and shield from under his garments (somewhat bizarrely - wherever could space be found?) and handed them to Ethan. Ethan took them, confused, and watched as the green-clad youth took another pair of sword and shield out, wielding them himself. (These two were notably superior in make, the sword glowing faintly. Ethan felt a momentary stab of jealously.)

For the third time, Ethan attempted to gain an explanation from his abductor. "Who are you? What the heck is going on?" His only response was an outstretched finger and wordless shout: "Yaaah!" Then the youth produced a conductor's baton from beneath his clothes, with it conjured another wind, and whirled himself away as swiftly as he came, towards the darkness in the east; leaving Ethan standing alone on a small raft in the middle of endless water.

Ethan, both confused and bemused, looked to the direction indicated; and there saw a shape, moving beneath the water. It came closer and closer, and Ethan readied his sword and shield nervously; then it erupted into the air in a column of sea-spray, bellowing hideously, and Ethan realized that it was a

LOBSTER!

Taller than Ethan himself, many times his weight, its fierce claws shone with a terrible sharpness. It fell onto the raft, squirming towards Ethan; that noble individual backed away, rather more than a little concerned. "Am I really intended to kill such a fierce creature?" he wondered. "And if I do not - will it kill me?"

(As with previous dialogue, he may have been less eloquent at the time. This author reserves the right to embellish as necessary, or even just when it seems funny. This is probably not a big surprise to anyone.)

Ethan tried to take another step backwards, watching the lobster click its claws together fiercely, and nearly fell into the water; he had retreated as far as he could. Sword and shield ready, he watched the lobster as it closed what little distance remained, considering whether to attempt flight (but if I do, surely the lobster will catch me, better suited to the water than I!) - and then he had a sudden revelation.

"It's an inflatable lobster!" he shouted. "I needn't worry at all!"

In a single moment, he stepped and lunged; the sword pierced the lobster, and with a terrible wail of escaping air it whirled into the air, deflating. In a poof of violet-black smoke, it exploded into nothingness; a green gem dropped into the space it left, whirling slowly as it balanced perfectly on its end.

Ethan picked it up, examining it; and was startled by another trumpeting noise. The green-clad youth returned to the raft, dropping to his feet from the wind he had summoned; behind him, the dark clouds had somehow vanished, and a sheen of ichor shone upon the sword he bore. Smiling broadly, he took the gem from Ethan's hands, examining it, then making it vanish; he produced instead a violet gem, of the same shape and size. This he gave to Ethan, who took it with a look of confusion. The youth gestured, seeming to request something in return; Ethan gave him the shield, hesitantly, then (on seeing its acceptance) the sword. The green-clad youth smiled, bowed, said something unintelligible, then once again called forth the wind. Ethan was whirled away, transported, and dropped onto the snow which he had so recently left.

Slowly, he rolled to a stop and came to his feet. The violet gem he held a while longer, staring at it; then he put it away within his snow-jacket. The skies were as bleary and the weather as dreadfully cold as when he had left; yet still Ethan could not restrain a smile from appearing upon his face. For he had defeated the lobster; and with this achievement, he could no longer feel sadness.

The Nikolas Agenda

The Nikolas Agenda is, by all reports, unspeakable.

So let's say no more of it!

Instead, we will discuss other agendas.

The Kelsey Agenda:

-Love

The Ethan Agenda:

- See "Kelsey", above
- Sudden, unprovoked violence
- Physical
- Verbal
- See "Kelsey", above

The Mormon Agenda:

- Joseph Smith
- Brigham Young
- Le-hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

The Zhang Agenda:

-Pedophilia
-Incest
-Rage at accurate descriptions of self
-Stalking

We hope this has been an education! Also, we hope that David doesn't injure himself in his standard fit after seeing something like this.

We hope a lot of things.

It's all part of...

The Nikolas Agenda!

Return of the Sib

He's coming home!

But not quite yet.

First: the power of dance!




hooraaaay

(The events depicted herein occur chronologically before the events at the Cove Fort, outside a restaurant by the name of "Chinese Buffet". (That's actually the name.) Here is their pricing scheme, in part:


They have a system, man! There's depth.)

Anyway: YAY SIB

Conspicuous Consumption

Visit (Mormon) Historic Cove Fort!

The weather was dismal. Gusts of snow blew with startling force, sometimes obscuring the highway on which we traveled on our hours-long journey. But we saw a sign: "See Historic Cove Fort: Next Exit!" Much in need of a break, we turned off the highway and went to have a look.

The Cove Fort, being soundly inland, was presumably metaphorical in its naming convention. It was a rather small fort, of similar appearance and design to other forts of the same period we had seen in California. It was Christmas Day, so we expected no guides, despite the signage indicating "free tours". Imagine our surprise when an old man emerged from a nearby building, ready to provide the advertised tour!

Our first moment of concern was upon seeing his nametag. "Elder Thomas," it read*, with a clarifying "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" directly beneath. Why would a tour guide be a church elder? We wondered, but - in my case, at least - supposed that he was just an elder because he was really old. The tour began.

It started well. We learned historical facts - mission from Brigham Young, sent to build a fort, never really used, waypoint for mail-coaches and travelers... there was one off-moment, in which the Mormon good-treatment of Indians was explained as an "understanding" of their "descent from the tribe of Lehi" imparted by the Book of Mormon... but we, or I, shrugged it off.

Things, naturally, deteriorated.

We went room to room. We saw the trading-room, the telegraph room, the parlour. In this last, we were presented with a puzzle from Elder Thomas's equally ancient wife. "There are four sources of light in this room," she told us. "What are they?" We quickly named lamp, fire-place, and window, but those summed only two three. "It's a bit of a trick question," she admitted, and then told us the answer: the fourth source of light, of course, was scripture, which lights all our lives. (There was a Book of Mormon lying on the table.)

It was a very awkward moment.

The tour became more and more Mormonious. Here's the dining room, with a portrait of Jesus Christ, to which the original occupants of the fort would always kneel and pray before meals! Here's the kitchen, with a portrait of Brigham Young and his twelve apostles; here's the boys' room/root cellar, with a portrait of the governor/president of the church at that time; here's the girls' room, with a portrait of Joseph Smith, his brother, and the successful reconstitution of the Christian Church despite their untimely deaths!

A series of awkward moments. (Though I nearly cracked up when we were advised to go to "mormon.org" for answers to all our... mormon questions?)

The tour concluded, rousingly, with a presentation of Books of Mormon in many languages (in a case that folded out from the wall!), a gift of many pamphlets (one of which was actually about Cove Fort), and an analogy of a spinning wooden toy to the essential nature of Jesus Christ to our lives. (Presumably, I have spun to a halt. I think. It's a little unclear to me.)

So... Mormons, eh? In Utah, eh?

I guess.

(Here's a link.)

*Though he was a church elder, I confess that I don't recall our guide's name, nor do any of my family members. Thomas is a good name, though.

Ice-Beard

How did the ice-man get his ice-beard?

It is like this.

Once, he had an ordinary beard, of hair and love. (These are the standard components of beards.)

But then the war came!

The terrifying Cacodemon King, ruling with his many-tiered hierarchy of henchmen, descended upon the peaceful land wherein which the ice-man lived. He sought to perpetrate tyrannies unheard of, tyrannies too terrible to describe here - but with him came his foes. The space pirates and space elves and space pirate space elves all followed the Cacodemon King, leading a grass-roots opposition with heavy funding from special interest groups opposed to being ruled by a giant floating demon-head.

But for all their resources, the Resistance had a number of problems! First was the fact that they were fighting an immense horde of demons. They figured they could probably handle this with enough money. But the second problem was the Cacodemon King's greatest weapon - hypervomit! Unlike regular vomit, it possessed strange and deadly properties - digesting its victims alive. The Resistance was powerless against it!

But, after a series of extremely painful defeats, they formed a plan. They found the ice-man, deep within a secluded valley, and recruited him to their cause. (This took some doing.) A conclave of wizards, druids, and warlocks chanted a great spell, turning the ice-man's beard to ice. Now immune to the effects of the hypervomit, the ice-man marched at the head of the Resistance's armies, his ice-beard shielding him from all harm hurled his way. With a single spear of ice, he slew the Cacodemon King - but this victory was not without harm. In his dying breath, the Cacodemon King burbled a curse - that the ice-man must be frozen in place, never to move again from the banks of the stream where the last battle was fought. And so it rests to this day.

Rational thinkers might explain it otherwise - dismissing talk of Cacodemons and space-pirates, they would instead attribute the ice-beard to some kind of cycle of freezing and re-freezing that eventually forms stalagtites in the shape of a beard.

But no one likes rationality*!

So that is the end of our tale.

*er um maybe? In a sense.

Ice-Beard

How did the ice-man get his ice-beard?

It is like this.

Once, he had no beard.

He was not even an ice-man!

He was just a boulder, sitting above a little stream in a Utah park near the town of American Fork. As boulders go, he was pretty happy.

Then winter came.

Snow covered him, deeper and deeper. He became a man of ice!

This surprised him a little, but he continued his many duties unfazed.

(It's hard, being an immobile, inert object. Try it! You won't be able to last long.)

Then the snow began to creep down to the water. The water melted it! Then it re-froze. Again and again!

It became a snow-beard, for the ice-man!

That is how science explains it.

Irrationality would explain it differently! There might be elves, and pirates, and space elf space pirates, all engaged in an epic battle against the Lord of Darkness, the Cacodemon King.

But no-one likes irrationality!

So that is the end of our tale.

Dreadful Zhang

The dreadful Zhang roars, his long tusks thrusting into the air. Before him cowers a maiden, her skirts ripped and torn in her haste to escape; but in this she has failed, for behind her is a deep, dark crevasse, like a tear in the earth itself. Her eyes dart left and right, but she makes not a move, seemingly frozen in place with terror.

"Womons..." the Zhang mutters appreciatively, moving towards the maiden with his seven cloven hooves on his seven twisted legs. Trailers of drool slip from his fang-filled mouth as the maiden squirms backwards to the very edge of the abyss, trying to avoid the Zhang's advance.

Then comes a cry from behind: "Cease, foul creature!" The Zhang wheels, swifter than any creature of his size has any right to be: and there sees his bane, the foe of all evil, Ser Matthias, returned from the lands of the East at long last. "I am returned from the lands of the East at long last!" Matthias shouts, "We have fought before, and you emerged triumphant - but I have been seasoned by my journeys of the last two years! I have fought blizzards, baptised children, and taught youth. And more - I have practised the skills of battle! You were my better when I left - but now you will find that I am the master!"

The Zhang snorts and rears, bellowing in wordless rage. Something like words seem to emerge, for a moment - "Only a master of Mormons," perhaps - but it is twisted by the hate and pain that fills the Zhang without end. He charges, tusks moving to gore Matthias and his mount (the horse Mosiah); but Ser Matthias spurs Mosiah, turning him aside, and places his silver spear in the space he had occupied a moment before. The Zhang slows, reducing what might have been a fatal wound to a severely painful one; but the spear sticks, protruding from his forehead, and as the Zhang rears again, screaming in hideous agony, Matthias pulls his sword from its scabbard, urges Mosiah closer, and delivers unto the Zhang its death-blow.

The Zhang roars once more. Certainly it is a roar of pain - perhaps of anger - perhaps, too, of relief at the ending of its too-long existence. But it falls, blood pouring from its wounds, and its life ends. Ser Matthias salutes the maiden, who has begun to rise to her feet, tentatively elated at the defeat of the Zhang, and retrieves his silver spear from the Zhang's corpse. He makes to wipe the blood off it - then halts. There is a terrible realization within him, as the blood begins to crawl up the spear towards him:

The Zhang's blood is made of Nikolas-spiders.

Ser Matthias's face is filled with sadness. He looks about him, but it is clear that are too many Nikolas-spiders to kill - they swarm endlessly from the wounds of the Zhang, coming nearer and nearer to Ser Matthias. He is no coward, to ride away and leave the maiden to their tender mercies. This is not a choice he can make. So he rides to the maiden's side; passes her Mosiah's reins, asking her that she might "feed him and water him, please, that he should not suffer in his absence." Then, as the Nikolas-spiders bite at his feet, brave Ser Matthias turns and dives, falling into the crevasse; the Nikolas-spiders follow, and in their absence, the maiden and Mosiah are alone.

That is the story of Ser Matthias: for it has been three long years since these events occured, and no word since has come to us of his fate, be it good or ill. We tell this story every year, that his memory might live on among us; and we pray, as we do every year, that Brave Ser Matthias might have survived the fall, defeated the Nikolas-spiders by some clever ruse, and might, some day soon, be returned unto us.

Mormonia in the Frost-Land

It is the land of the ice and snow.

Snow falls in drifts and flurries, clogging roads, roofs, car-windows. When the snow does not fall, rain drenches hapless pedestrians; when the rain, too, falls not, gusts of freezing wind batter cars and people alike. It is an ill time for travel.

Yet this we do. We travel from Oakland - itself beset by rain and darkness - to Salt Lake City, covered in wintry white vestments. (The trip is hours delayed - but I digress!) We travel by motor-car to Orem, buffeted by deadly wind and unable to see the road-guides. And there we meet at last that fellow long severed from us - known to some as Sib-Sib, or Ethan.

It is a joyous reunion.

There is much to do, and little time - I will write more later.