The Road to PARTIZAN 06: Beam Saber Pt. 1

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Episode description[edit | edit source]

Months ago, the OriCom Logistics Division staged a strategic coup against the Divine Principality by successfully escorting Courageous to a rendezvous point where they opened a gate for OriCom’s ally in the war, the Divine Collaborate, so that they could join OriCom’s fleet with their own. In the time since, though, the fighting has been trying, the allies have lost many (including teammate Lunar Leson), and additional reinforcements are far away and moving more slowly than anticipated.

Which is why Memphis Longhand, the Talk brothers, and their new Divine-piloting ally, Pigeon, are being sent on a secret mission. On the planet of Grona, in the city of Zibeline, fighting rages against the occupying Principality’s forces. The resistance there is waiting desperately for a delivery that is supposed to change the war forever...

This week on the Road to PARTIZAN: Beam Saber Pt. 1

////ASSET: Dunlop-class Mobile Shipping Depot, 'Topmark'

////LOCATION: Lagoon-N 332

///STATUS: ABANDONED | DECOMMISSIONED

///DESCRIPTION: Dunlop-class Mobile Shipping Depots were mobile logistics platforms designed for refuel and repair in the era [sic] before Stel Orion’s formation. Able to house six frigate-class vessels at once, the Dunlop was an operational cornerstone for both Orion warfare and commerce. Once integration into the Principality was complete, these depots fell out of favor for both aesthetic and technical reasons. This particular vessel was decommissioned after ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. No attempt should be made to recover.

Contents[edit | edit source]

Opening[edit | edit source]

An excerpt from the journal of Rye, elect of the Divine Space, Second of the Nine Coronet of Stel Orion, Chief Signatory of the Pact of Necessary Venture, and Provedore of all Divinity in this, the year 1423 of our Perfect Millennium.

Did you know that thousands of years ago, my people hated beings like you, Space? This was well before we found our purpose as Stel Orion, but quite a bit after we’d settled into our destiny as captains of industry. We feared you, I suppose. We fled from you, certainly. And we built weapons specifically to kill you and anything like you, even if it cost us our own lives. And that is a task we’ve only gotten better at with time.

What I find remarkable about all this is that, as I understand it—and I understand it better than most—we did all of that after we built you. Not just you, of course, but the Divines writ large.

You weren’t even supposed to be all that important, see: Your kind? You began as a passion project, on some anonymous company’s research budget. You were tied to a cold facility on a bitter, provincial world. Maybe you were someone’s last best hope, but to the whole of Orion? You were a line item.

Is it any wonder we came to fear you? Look at all you represent: You are the rebelliousness of invention. You are the unpredictability of time. And you are us, at our most, and magnified. It is as old Nideo said, there is no debate: You are fire and mirror both. And any attempts to say otherwise are just words spoken with a coward’s voice.

Rye

Plot[edit | edit source]

The episode continues off of the Dusk to Midnight game, with Smack Talk, David Talk, and Memphis Longhand finding Lunar Leson missing from the Rose-of-Sharon. We then flash forward to 10am on a Tuesday. The crew are in a shipping depot called the Topmark waiting for their next mission. David is drinking coffee with military rations, Memphis has finished an hour-long conversation with his manager, and Smack is boxing with a gravity weighted punching bag. They know that yesterday, a battered Yes! Power smuggling ship arrived with half of its crew dead.

Soon enough, they're called to Conference Room Birch to meet with Chief Dispatcher Relevant Kehj. She briefs them on the mission: they are to escort the pilot from the smuggling ship, Dr. Kirst Bittenbach, and his shipment to Zibeline City, located on the planet Grona. The contents of the box are a mystery, but it's assured that they'll shift the war in favor of OriCom. Once it's delivered they will be required to defend it at the Better! Brighter! headquarters. Ideally, they'll limit damage to the power system so the package can draw power from the surrounding area to activate.

Kehj also outlines the terrain to the team. A river cuts through Zibeline, splitting the city into a west side and east side. The west is controlled by the Principality. Courage is somewhere in its territory, along with three orbital cannons near the city walls. The center of the city is a no-mans land with remnants of the shopping district. OriCom holds farmland to the south-east, outside of the city walls. There is little intel on where the Divine Collaborate is located, but OriCom knows that the Divine Rogalian is being sent out into the western Principality territory.

After the meeting, David questions Dr. Bittenbach about the box, asking standard shipping questions to gain more information. While Bittenbach does not answer concretely, he confirms that the shipment contains a dangerous piece of advanced technology, but not a bomb. The scene cuts to everyone traveling onboard the space trucks holding their mechs. It's here that Pigeon joins the team with her Divine Harmonious. The crew also have a cohort: a group of rovers/space truckers named Cowtipper, Avignon, Buttermilk, and James. Smack feels stifled by having Bittenbach onboard, and talks to Cowtipper. Cowtipper comments on his distrust for Bittenbach, but the conversation shifts to their feelings on Memphis Longhand.

In order to avoid the Principality's orbital cannons, the team lands their ships in the river, entering the combat zone from the west. Once they are fully submerged, they ready their mechs, preparing for the next step in their plan.

Cast[edit | edit source]

Other Characters[edit | edit source]