Changes In The Wind –New Horizons pt8 – Learning Curve…

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silentWitness
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Changes In The Wind –New Horizons pt8 – Learning Curve…

Post by silentWitness » Fri, 9. Dec 11, 17:20

Part One: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=301044
Part Two: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=301210
Part Three: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=301748
Part Four: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=302665
Part Five: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=303054
Part Six: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=303730
Part Seven: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=303944

Changes In The Wind –New Horizons pt8 – Learning Curve…

Things had seemed to have settled down… I would cook a little breakfast and take it to Sry’akl to wake him up. As usual he would have over slept and still be deep in slumber. Then we would take a tray up to Allontamant in the sanctuary room. It’s big arching windows opening into space. It was calming… it helped me focus. I was glad to have Sry’akl there with me. Allontamant was scary… his fists were giant metallic razors that could probably slice through the little tea tray before I had even realised he meant to harm me. He seemed to take great pleasure in my servitude. “It was my place”… I was angry but fighting back would only make things worse… I would sit down and draw… Allontamant would talk endlessly about nanites while Useless would playfully correct the constant mistakes that Allontamant made in his descriptions with little nanites whispers in my ear. Sry’akl played his part well… faking understanding… “seeing it just like that!” In the evening I would give Useless his dinner and he would teach me for real… Our lesson for tonight was to be basic manipulation fields it was the most basic apparently! I didn’t want to tell him I’d technically already used one to protect Sry’akl… nor that I had been practicing since then with the handful on nanites not encased within his field… but I had found that acting dumb was always preferable to others knowing what you were capable of in this new found hostile environment. As his field eased and reformed I felt the swarm that was me swirl excitedly pushing hard against its container to be with me. The forces inside the field becoming visible to the naked eye much to Useless’s alarm. “My girl you must relax” but as he motioned to sweep my nanites closer to him an irrational feeling of loneliness seemed to come over me, I could barely stop it spreading out through my nanites. The field swept towards him bursting through his containment and over him almost before he could form a counter field. I shut my eyes as the fields hit each other with such force that they caused a flash of light that it seemed to burn my eyelids. Useless spat on the floor his anger barely held in check “YOU! So you have ‘mastered’ fields but there is more to learn” I felt the nanites around him forming up, feeding on his aggression, a white fire seemed to erupt from around him, his breath was ragged, the anger just under the surface it was like he was surrounded by pure energy, as he closed his fields around his nanites I felt that too… a sort of cloak, masking his essence… another new thing he had inadvertently taught me. His expression eased “but my child… that was simply an accident… I should not expect you to successfully control one least alone a hive of nanites… you have amassed quite the army of units… no doubt because no others can control them…” He hesitated… “I think that is enough for today. Practice controlling your fields holding them steady… power is not in what you do but in what you do not”. And with that I was sent away without any real instructions and no way of knowing what was the ‘right’ way… That night I practiced in the tiny closet that was my quarters it was originally a servant room such was my level onboard this ship…

I practiced as I did every night and as usual the universe opened up to me… It wasn’t as surprising as I expected it to be to discover that nanites could change their nature… It just felt right. I practiced turning nanites into their energy producing form, but as I took them back to their normal state I felt as if they could go the other way too… they could obfuscate. This was harder… but as I practiced I felt myself become closer and closer to my nanites. It was like reinventing the universe… the power seemed limitless but as this all this power swirled about me I thought of what Useless had said… it was true… holding back the tide of change was harder… holding them in the changed state seemed almost impossible after more than a few moments at a time, but what concerned me was after every meditative state it was hard to reach out and touch with my hands and not simply to take it with my nanites. The real and the nanite fought within me… it was a strange feeling, as if I wasn’t fully Argon, like I was part machine all along, as if it was my true nature I was interacting with. The power flowed so freely and with each night of practice I gained more control, soon I even felt the nanites inside Useless’s field at full strength… part of me worried about this but as Sry’akl said… ‘once you get to know them it won’t be so exciting and you’ll not lose control to your emotions’… if only he knew… he had become excruciatingly cute over the past few days taking the tray when we walked together to Allontamant’s lessons and despite Useless sulking I was able to spend more time concentrating on Sry’akl and his acting… those expressive eyes of his. One morning his hand accidently brushed mine as he took the tray from me… oh god I sound like a school girl… why does he do this to me?!?? I swear one of these days I’m going to have to kiss him...

There was a crash! “DAMN SPLIT! I have explained it perfectly! Just reach out and move the nanites!” Allontamant had overturned the table and was holding Sry’akl by the shoulder as if he was a rag doll, I tried to scream but my breath was held. Sry’akl’s voice sounded angry “I’m trying but they keep slipping away! You must have forgotten to tell me something! It’s like trying to grasp at sand!” Allontamant roared throwing Sry’akl to the floor. “Tomorrow you shall move the nanites or you will die! No more stalling!” Sry’s voice sounded dismissive “yeah you better be ready for it tin man!” Allontamant stormed out slamming his giant fist into the bulkhead as he left. The air burned my lungs as I rushed to Sty’s form lying prostrate on the ground, the air seemed super heated… “Are you allright?!?” My voice had become little more than a hushed scream, he gave me a half grin “Yeah… Just don’t ask me about my pride ok?” we both laughed but both our eyes lingered on the huge gaping hole in the bulkhead leading into the corridor, already the nanites had started upon it but if it had been a person they wouldn’t have such luxury. That night I pleaded with Useless to let me do something in front of Allontamant, turn a nanite, shift it slightly… anything to make things ok in tomorrows’ lesson, but even before I had begun to talk I could see that Useless was getting ready to give me the ‘tone’ “Young lady… you have achieved much control over your nanites in such little time, but Allontamant is not blind. He will sense that they came from you and all of Sry’akl’s work to keep you hidden with be for naught.” His voice was perfectly tempered and sincere but I wasn’t having it “but what good is that if he is dead!” the old Paranid groaned and without warning swept up my nanites into a field, locking them away tight. “Young lady I cannot allow you to jeopardise yourself” a little tear leaked out of my eye “but… but” more tears were coming… Useless opened his arms motioning me in for a hug, I didn’t feel much like hugging… It felt like my world was crashing down around me… Then Whoosh… the nanites fell from containment, as if the bottom had just fallen out. They spilled out and disappeared into nothingness… I felt them all around but they weren’t there… I wasn’t straining to keep them hidden… they were just sort of gone… Useless’s jaw dropped. “Young lady… tell me where did you learn that???” I sensed him scanning around searching, turning this way and that for them as if I had hidden them in a box somewhere. I felt whole, my nanites held close to me. Useless turned back to face me and gave a grin “It’s alright… You should de-phase them… I’m not angry indeed this is my fault. I have been underestimating you all this time.” His voice was whimsical and playful. Perhaps it would be fun to come clean… His jaw once again dropped as I shifted my nanites into their energy form before dropping them back to normal. “Well then… If you believe you can control the phased state then who am I to tell you what you can and can’t do. You are beyond a simple student but then I should have known… In our next lesion I think we shall look at more complex constructs.

Allontamant seemed genuinely shocked when the nanite moved… I had been very careful trailing my phased nanites through Sry’akl and then slowly nudging the nanite with microscopic phase fields… There was no way to trace it to me. Sry’akl acted perfectly as Allontamant began to set harder and harder tasks, but it all came so naturally to me now that my nanites were right here with me. As I sat there I sat there drawing I barely noticed Allontamant move closer to Sry’akl… I didn’t truly notice until I felt his breath on my neck. “SO Argon… it is you. I had not expected something so pathetic to control nanites” I could barely think as his hand knocked me off the chair. Flashes of light as I flicked in and out of consciousness has he dragged me by my foot up to the control centre. The softness of the chair surrounded me…

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Holy mother of Argnu I had fallen asleep!! All I had to do was stay awake and pretend to be doing it but what happened? Yeah I fell asleep! So what does her lover and protector wake up to you ask? Yeah the evil Cyborg psychopath beating her with his fists! Figures I’d be completely useless! I tried to move from the chair but the bastu had cuffed me to it! The machine shop was two decks down, the armoury five decks up with no way access it… great so once again the great warrior is using the weapons of mass engineering! The chair was huge pain in the bastu as I dragged it through the corridors. The Sieron cutter blazed as it cut through the binds but then what? Me against a huge hulking Cyborg with no reason to keep me alive! Problem is my brain ain’t thinking right! Yeah being a big damn hero and going to get myself killed!
In the bridge there was no noise. I was already too late. She was in the chair that bastu standing over her. The Sieron cutter shot across the room striking his armour ineffectually the disruptor shots passed by my shoulder as I dived into cover. Why? I don’t know. I had no weapons and no hope. The Cyborg lumbered to where I was and then stopped… why had he stopped?? Poking my head out I saw nanites swirling around the Paranid. His armour slowly buckling as he was crushed like a bug, then it happened. The shots rang out… In a moment she was gone… her body so much dust and vapour. The bastard had won… and everyone had lost. My breath caught in my mouth, I couldn’t breath let alone think. She was gone… and I hadn’t even told her how I felt…



You're not ready for the amazing finale I have planned... :wink: I think you guys will like the plot twist! :twisted:

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lichking21st
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Post by lichking21st » Sun, 11. Dec 11, 04:26

Nice to see you back :D

Good work on the story, however I thought the Split sounded... unsplitlike xD

Wasn't so arrogant like a Split would sound... but then again, he has just woken up to see an insane cyborg monster after being abused for idk how long.

:lol:

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silentWitness
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Post by silentWitness » Sun, 11. Dec 11, 17:19

Don't worry the next part is full of angry Split ranting that you know and love! x

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Post by greypanther » Wed, 14. Dec 11, 21:38

Nice to see you posting again. :)

Have you ever thought of writing something not based in the X universe? I just feel writing a story set in X, means you will always be judged by so many expectations. :)
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Post by KiwiNZ » Thu, 15. Dec 11, 21:57

I haven't been on this forum in quite a few years and just poked my head in to see what is going on. This is a great story. You have an amazing imagination. :)

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Post by Deeparth » Sat, 26. Jan 13, 22:34

Its been months since the last update.

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silentWitness
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Post by silentWitness » Tue, 20. Aug 13, 04:06

Well... Most people are too wrapped in their DIDs to comment on actual writing... :p

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Post by Skism » Tue, 20. Aug 13, 17:15

silentWitness wrote:Well... Most people are too wrapped in their DIDs to comment on actual writing... :p
To be fair I rarely visit this part of the forum its ether Off topic English X Universe or now X rebirth
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withar
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Post by withar » Sun, 10. Nov 13, 01:05

silentWitness wrote:Well... Most people are too wrapped in their DIDs to comment on actual writing... :p
I come back after 4 years and i cant move for all the DiD's :p (though some are good, they never really hold my attention)

Nice to see at least one of writers i remember still active. I fondly remember Of Future Heroism being the first piece of X-universe fanfiction i ever read.
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silentWitness
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Post by silentWitness » Mon, 8. Jun 15, 13:34


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