Ge universal remote jc024
How common is it to be a guy in your early 30s and not ever having had a woman genuinely interested in you?
2024.05.08 02:46 dabay7788 How common is it to be a guy in your early 30s and not ever having had a woman genuinely interested in you?
Trying to get a gauge of how many other guys out there are in a similar situation to me
I've gone through all of regular school + 5 years of university and now adult work life (granted I work remote now), and all that time I havent had one woman genuinely interested in me
These days I crave even just having a woman to have conversations with
submitted by dabay7788 to AskMen [link] [comments]
I've gone through all of regular school + 5 years of university and now adult work life (granted I work remote now), and all that time I havent had one woman genuinely interested in me
These days I crave even just having a woman to have conversations with
2024.05.08 02:42 kiltedfrog Little Blighters...
"Against The Raz'krin!" The Prime Citizen was aghast. It's flagella raged and wriggled wildly.
The entire council was in uproar, the newest species to join the galactic council had just informed the esteemed body that they were going to engage in Total War against the Raz'krin, one of the galactic council's most hated foes.
The Raz'krin Empire spanned over a thousand star systems, the human worlds totaled low enough that the prime citizen could count them on their flagella and still have many left over.
The Prime Citizen, Blorpharx the Englobulator, pushed a button on the console, and a high pitch tone squealed through the chamber, silencing everyone. "Human Ambassador, Ali, is your universal translator working properly? Is this an attempt at humor? If so it isn't landing."
"Yes Prime Citizen, I assure you my translator is working correctly. No this isn't a joke. The Raz'krin are physically half our average size, I am very small for a human," the ambassador had dwarfism. It was decided that since humans were so very much larger than most space faring races and couldn't live on most of their worlds anyhow, they'd only send adults under a meter in height to be ambassadors. Ambassador Ali continued, "As fellow death-worlder's their planets are already perfect for us, we don't need to terraform a single one of them, as your people's marvelous intelligence gathering operations have shown us."
The Second Citizen, a Felidian with a peibald coat, leaned forward and licked her paw, a sign she was about to begin speaking. She roared, and growled and chuffed and yowled, and the translator engaged, "The Raz'krin are dangerous, they do not engage in diplomacy, but they expand slowly, and when their ships arrive to a world they give the inhabitants plenty of time to evacuate before they attack. But they do ruin worlds, by turning them into death worlds like yours."
"And when is the last time they actually had to attack?" Ambassador Ali asked. He waited a moment before he spoke again, "Anyone? Bueller?"
Blorpharx gurgled a long response, and the translator device put it out in galactic common, which was translated to humanese in the Ambassador's ear, "It has been five hundred cycles since anyone actually engaged in warfare against the Raz'krin, and none have ever engaged them in Total War, as it would be species suicide. The Raz'krin are notoriously vengeful. History says that when we fought back they only expanded faster. At this rate it'll take millions of years for them to cover the whole galaxy."
"And you intend to just... what? Wait for them to do it?" Ali asked.
"A solution will present itself eventually." Growled the Second Citizen.
"Oh, a solution has, Prime Citizen." Ambassador Ali held a comms device to his mouth and said, "Admiral, would you bring in the holo projector, please. Oh, and the Raz'krin invasion fleet's Admiral too, the little blighter."
A bright light from outside poured in through the entrance to the council chambers, silhouetting pair of a tall, powerfully built human marines. They had to duck, significantly, to enter the chamber, and those doors were a full two meters tall. Between them a green skinned Raz'krin in a red military uniform, barely over a meter tall, and trailing behind a slightly shorter human with grey hair and lot of stars on his shoulders.
The Raz'krin were hominids, or were the humans raz'krinids? They had five fingers and seven toes. Unlike humans, they continuously grow in new teeth. An infinite number of teeth, all very pointy. They had green skin, and when humans first encountered them, they called them Goblins.
The Admiral looked like he'd been worked over pretty good. He only had a few teeth left in his head, but, they'd grow back right?
"This is the admiral that was leading the fleet that tried to invade one of our smaller colony worlds. The Militia there defended themselves as it was a surprise attack by the Goblins." The Human fleet admiral said, "They thought, that they could come right on down because they didn't need to terraform it. They thought wrong, didn't they Admiral Greechzo."
The Raz'krin admiral dropped to his knees before the three tall humans. "P-P-Please, Raz'krin no come for humans worlds again. Let Greechzo have a small shuttle, you humans never see Raz'krin again."
"Play the holo!" Ambassador Ali said.
One of the marines responded by pulling a device from his pocket and tossing it down on the floor. It projected a familiar shape of a planet, with exaggerated space station's and orbital platforms shown. Not quite a scale model, but a useful one.
The human admiral stepped between his marines and picked up the Goblin Admiral by the scruff of his uniform, and dragged him over closer to the device. "Admiral Greechzo. Why don't you walk us through the battle?"
The holo projection showed the Raz'krin fleet drop out of warp around the planet. When Greechzo didn't start talking the Admiral held up the control remote for the holo and made a show of pressing pause. "Well, we're waiting, Admiral."
Greechzo looked like he was about to attack the human Admiral, but the human Admiral just clenched his fist and quietly asked, "Do you want to lose your remaining teeth?"
Greechzo swallowed what little pride he had left, and started speaking. "As you can see here, my fleet dropped out of warp. We had been ignoring the hails coming from the planet for twenty seven hours. That seems to be when they detected us."
The holo resumed, and showed the human weapons emplacements on the planet's largest moon open fire. As well as multiple space stations that moments ago didn't seem to be so bristling with weapons.
"The Initial counter volley took out a third of my ships. As you can see here we will open fire to retaliate, our laser batteries are powerless against the human shield technology, so I order a switch to full ballistics and missiles, torpedoes, whatever we can physically throw."
The holo shows his remaining assault fleet, a mere twenty ships, launch all manner of things, most of which get shot down. Some explode, a couple of planetary defense platforms get wiped out, but not everything. The shields come online for the Raz'krin fleet, and the second volley from the cannons is much less effective than the first. The Human Admiral pauses.
"A critical weakness in the Goblin fleet. For several seconds after dropping out of warp, their shield emitters are non-operational. To that end, Humanity will be providing all border systems neighboring the Goblin Empire with human made orbital weapons platforms. Please, Continue Admiral Greechzo." The holo continues.
"Next, you will see us beg for a ceasefire. My fleet has been cut in half at this point, and my science guys told me that with maximum shield output we'd be dead in less than two minutes. So we fled."
The fifteen remaining ships blipped off the planetary map, and the holo changed views. showing their warp signatures. Then it showed a fleet roughly twice it's size overtaking it. "Go on Greechzo, tell'em how this part went."
"Ahem. The Human ships were faster than us...and more maneuverable out of warp, they picked us off one by one, disabling our remaining ships with their superior numbers, and firepower. Then they boarded us... Men like those two, in powered armor, with swords and guns and axes. They captures the captains of every ship they boarded, and killed twenty percent of each crew. They then press ganged the crews into flying our ships back to their colony, where they disassembling them I assume to steal Raz'krin secrets."
The Prime Citizen was all rigid flagella from the instant the two Admirals had entered, an finally was able to speak, "What happened to the Raz'krin crews?"
"Oh, the goblins? We gottem workin the mines, right boss?" One of the Marines said.
The council erupted into chaos once again...
submitted by kiltedfrog to AFrogWroteThis [link] [comments]
The entire council was in uproar, the newest species to join the galactic council had just informed the esteemed body that they were going to engage in Total War against the Raz'krin, one of the galactic council's most hated foes.
The Raz'krin Empire spanned over a thousand star systems, the human worlds totaled low enough that the prime citizen could count them on their flagella and still have many left over.
The Prime Citizen, Blorpharx the Englobulator, pushed a button on the console, and a high pitch tone squealed through the chamber, silencing everyone. "Human Ambassador, Ali, is your universal translator working properly? Is this an attempt at humor? If so it isn't landing."
"Yes Prime Citizen, I assure you my translator is working correctly. No this isn't a joke. The Raz'krin are physically half our average size, I am very small for a human," the ambassador had dwarfism. It was decided that since humans were so very much larger than most space faring races and couldn't live on most of their worlds anyhow, they'd only send adults under a meter in height to be ambassadors. Ambassador Ali continued, "As fellow death-worlder's their planets are already perfect for us, we don't need to terraform a single one of them, as your people's marvelous intelligence gathering operations have shown us."
The Second Citizen, a Felidian with a peibald coat, leaned forward and licked her paw, a sign she was about to begin speaking. She roared, and growled and chuffed and yowled, and the translator engaged, "The Raz'krin are dangerous, they do not engage in diplomacy, but they expand slowly, and when their ships arrive to a world they give the inhabitants plenty of time to evacuate before they attack. But they do ruin worlds, by turning them into death worlds like yours."
"And when is the last time they actually had to attack?" Ambassador Ali asked. He waited a moment before he spoke again, "Anyone? Bueller?"
Blorpharx gurgled a long response, and the translator device put it out in galactic common, which was translated to humanese in the Ambassador's ear, "It has been five hundred cycles since anyone actually engaged in warfare against the Raz'krin, and none have ever engaged them in Total War, as it would be species suicide. The Raz'krin are notoriously vengeful. History says that when we fought back they only expanded faster. At this rate it'll take millions of years for them to cover the whole galaxy."
"And you intend to just... what? Wait for them to do it?" Ali asked.
"A solution will present itself eventually." Growled the Second Citizen.
"Oh, a solution has, Prime Citizen." Ambassador Ali held a comms device to his mouth and said, "Admiral, would you bring in the holo projector, please. Oh, and the Raz'krin invasion fleet's Admiral too, the little blighter."
A bright light from outside poured in through the entrance to the council chambers, silhouetting pair of a tall, powerfully built human marines. They had to duck, significantly, to enter the chamber, and those doors were a full two meters tall. Between them a green skinned Raz'krin in a red military uniform, barely over a meter tall, and trailing behind a slightly shorter human with grey hair and lot of stars on his shoulders.
The Raz'krin were hominids, or were the humans raz'krinids? They had five fingers and seven toes. Unlike humans, they continuously grow in new teeth. An infinite number of teeth, all very pointy. They had green skin, and when humans first encountered them, they called them Goblins.
The Admiral looked like he'd been worked over pretty good. He only had a few teeth left in his head, but, they'd grow back right?
"This is the admiral that was leading the fleet that tried to invade one of our smaller colony worlds. The Militia there defended themselves as it was a surprise attack by the Goblins." The Human fleet admiral said, "They thought, that they could come right on down because they didn't need to terraform it. They thought wrong, didn't they Admiral Greechzo."
The Raz'krin admiral dropped to his knees before the three tall humans. "P-P-Please, Raz'krin no come for humans worlds again. Let Greechzo have a small shuttle, you humans never see Raz'krin again."
"Play the holo!" Ambassador Ali said.
One of the marines responded by pulling a device from his pocket and tossing it down on the floor. It projected a familiar shape of a planet, with exaggerated space station's and orbital platforms shown. Not quite a scale model, but a useful one.
The human admiral stepped between his marines and picked up the Goblin Admiral by the scruff of his uniform, and dragged him over closer to the device. "Admiral Greechzo. Why don't you walk us through the battle?"
The holo projection showed the Raz'krin fleet drop out of warp around the planet. When Greechzo didn't start talking the Admiral held up the control remote for the holo and made a show of pressing pause. "Well, we're waiting, Admiral."
Greechzo looked like he was about to attack the human Admiral, but the human Admiral just clenched his fist and quietly asked, "Do you want to lose your remaining teeth?"
Greechzo swallowed what little pride he had left, and started speaking. "As you can see here, my fleet dropped out of warp. We had been ignoring the hails coming from the planet for twenty seven hours. That seems to be when they detected us."
The holo resumed, and showed the human weapons emplacements on the planet's largest moon open fire. As well as multiple space stations that moments ago didn't seem to be so bristling with weapons.
"The Initial counter volley took out a third of my ships. As you can see here we will open fire to retaliate, our laser batteries are powerless against the human shield technology, so I order a switch to full ballistics and missiles, torpedoes, whatever we can physically throw."
The holo shows his remaining assault fleet, a mere twenty ships, launch all manner of things, most of which get shot down. Some explode, a couple of planetary defense platforms get wiped out, but not everything. The shields come online for the Raz'krin fleet, and the second volley from the cannons is much less effective than the first. The Human Admiral pauses.
"A critical weakness in the Goblin fleet. For several seconds after dropping out of warp, their shield emitters are non-operational. To that end, Humanity will be providing all border systems neighboring the Goblin Empire with human made orbital weapons platforms. Please, Continue Admiral Greechzo." The holo continues.
"Next, you will see us beg for a ceasefire. My fleet has been cut in half at this point, and my science guys told me that with maximum shield output we'd be dead in less than two minutes. So we fled."
The fifteen remaining ships blipped off the planetary map, and the holo changed views. showing their warp signatures. Then it showed a fleet roughly twice it's size overtaking it. "Go on Greechzo, tell'em how this part went."
"Ahem. The Human ships were faster than us...and more maneuverable out of warp, they picked us off one by one, disabling our remaining ships with their superior numbers, and firepower. Then they boarded us... Men like those two, in powered armor, with swords and guns and axes. They captures the captains of every ship they boarded, and killed twenty percent of each crew. They then press ganged the crews into flying our ships back to their colony, where they disassembling them I assume to steal Raz'krin secrets."
The Prime Citizen was all rigid flagella from the instant the two Admirals had entered, an finally was able to speak, "What happened to the Raz'krin crews?"
"Oh, the goblins? We gottem workin the mines, right boss?" One of the Marines said.
The council erupted into chaos once again...
2024.05.08 02:27 qrcode23 Back to the office
Well the end of an era. In my one on one the other day my manager said we are having back to the office policy.
I told this forum last year once the job market looks bad we would be forced back into the office. Told you guys there wasn’t unlimited growth in the tech sector. But no the most up vote was that they insisted remote work universally would stay…
Check my history.
submitted by qrcode23 to cscareerquestions [link] [comments]
I told this forum last year once the job market looks bad we would be forced back into the office. Told you guys there wasn’t unlimited growth in the tech sector. But no the most up vote was that they insisted remote work universally would stay…
Check my history.
2024.05.08 02:16 Ultimatum_Game_TC VETERANS IN THE US ONLY - We are recruiting post-9/11 Veterans for a paid study on their transition experiences!
Thank you to those who have already participated! We're still recruiting!
We’re the Loss, Trauma, & Emotion Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. We are conducting an online study to learn more about Veteran experiences as they transition out of the military to civilian life. The study involves brief questionnaires, an experiment, and a discussion. We will reimburse you up to $40.00 for around 1 hour of your time.
Please use this link below to learn more about the study and complete our eligibility survey. https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Fumx9IgXbsZfEO
If eligible and selected to participate, you will be asked to play a remotely-administered decision-making game with other study participants and complete a brief discussion about your experiences transitioning from veteran to civilian life.
If you have any questions, please comment below or reach out to us at [ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu](mailto:ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu)
Teachers College IRB Protocol 23-265
submitted by Ultimatum_Game_TC to Veterans [link] [comments]
We’re the Loss, Trauma, & Emotion Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. We are conducting an online study to learn more about Veteran experiences as they transition out of the military to civilian life. The study involves brief questionnaires, an experiment, and a discussion. We will reimburse you up to $40.00 for around 1 hour of your time.
Please use this link below to learn more about the study and complete our eligibility survey. https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Fumx9IgXbsZfEO
If eligible and selected to participate, you will be asked to play a remotely-administered decision-making game with other study participants and complete a brief discussion about your experiences transitioning from veteran to civilian life.
If you have any questions, please comment below or reach out to us at [ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu](mailto:ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu)
Teachers College IRB Protocol 23-265
2024.05.08 02:16 Ultimatum_Game_TC VETERANS IN THE US ONLY - We are recruiting post-9/11 Veterans for a paid study on their transition experiences!
Thank you to those who have already participated! We're still recruiting!
We’re the Loss, Trauma, & Emotion Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. We are conducting an online study to learn more about Veteran experiences as they transition out of the military to civilian life. The study involves brief questionnaires, an experiment, and a discussion. We will reimburse you up to $40.00 for around 1 hour of your time.
Please use this link below to learn more about the study and complete our eligibility survey. https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Fumx9IgXbsZfEO
If eligible and selected to participate, you will be asked to play a remotely-administered decision-making game with other study participants and complete a brief discussion about your experiences transitioning from veteran to civilian life.
If you have any questions, please comment below or reach out to us at [ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu](mailto:ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu)
Teachers College IRB Protocol 23-265
submitted by Ultimatum_Game_TC to Military [link] [comments]
We’re the Loss, Trauma, & Emotion Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. We are conducting an online study to learn more about Veteran experiences as they transition out of the military to civilian life. The study involves brief questionnaires, an experiment, and a discussion. We will reimburse you up to $40.00 for around 1 hour of your time.
Please use this link below to learn more about the study and complete our eligibility survey. https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Fumx9IgXbsZfEO
If eligible and selected to participate, you will be asked to play a remotely-administered decision-making game with other study participants and complete a brief discussion about your experiences transitioning from veteran to civilian life.
If you have any questions, please comment below or reach out to us at [ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu](mailto:ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu)
Teachers College IRB Protocol 23-265
2024.05.08 02:14 Logical-Thought-6842 Can’t seem to get any traction.. Roast my resume
submitted by Logical-Thought-6842 to resumes [link] [comments]
2024.05.08 02:13 Ultimatum_Game_TC VETERANS IN THE US ONLY - We are recruiting post-9/11 Veterans for a paid study on their transition experiences!
Thank you to those who have already participated! We're still recruiting!
We’re the Loss, Trauma, & Emotion Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. We are conducting an online study to learn more about Veteran experiences as they transition out of the military to civilian life. The study involves brief questionnaires, an experiment, and a discussion. We will reimburse you up to $40.00 for around 1 hour of your time.
Please use this link below to learn more about the study and complete our eligibility survey. https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Fumx9IgXbsZfEO
If eligible and selected to participate, you will be asked to play a remotely-administered decision-making game with other study participants and complete a brief discussion about your experiences transitioning from veteran to civilian life.
If you have any questions, please comment below or reach out to us at [ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu](mailto:ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu)
Teachers College IRB Protocol 23-265
submitted by Ultimatum_Game_TC to USMC [link] [comments]
We’re the Loss, Trauma, & Emotion Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. We are conducting an online study to learn more about Veteran experiences as they transition out of the military to civilian life. The study involves brief questionnaires, an experiment, and a discussion. We will reimburse you up to $40.00 for around 1 hour of your time.
Please use this link below to learn more about the study and complete our eligibility survey. https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Fumx9IgXbsZfEO
If eligible and selected to participate, you will be asked to play a remotely-administered decision-making game with other study participants and complete a brief discussion about your experiences transitioning from veteran to civilian life.
If you have any questions, please comment below or reach out to us at [ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu](mailto:ultimatum@tc.columbia.edu)
Teachers College IRB Protocol 23-265
2024.05.08 02:10 Present-Shower2920 Thanks to people in this sub, I got a new job!!
Hi y’all!
I posted in here several times throughout the past few months (on a few different accounts lol), and asked for advice on my career! For context, I am currently in my first full-time position since graduating college, and it’s an entry-level development position. I have 2 development internships under my belt, so I am currently at about 2 years of nonprofit development experience.
I posted in this sub regarding wanting to move up in development, and needing to make more money (lol). I got wonderful advice from so many people!! This included pathways to move up in development, how important my 2 years of experience is (impostor syndrome), and more. One thing some people said was to look into universities/hospitals, so I did! At first I was hesitant because I prefer orgs. that do more ‘social justice-y’ work, but came to realize that this helps people who can’t afford higher education, medicine, etc.
I applied to one higher education job just because I felt I would be great for this role. It was asking for 1-2 years experience, and I have that, and it’s less customer service-oriented than my current position (which is something I wanted). Long story short, after about a month and a half long process, I got the job!!! It’s fully remote, it’s at a very well-known university, ANDDD it’s a 25% increase in salary for me!!! (I was about to be promoted in my current role and would’ve only had a 7% increase.)
Anywayssss, I’m really, really excited! Im going to be sad leaving my current team, but this is a great opportunity for me. I couldn’t have done it without the kind people in this sub !!! So thank you :)
submitted by Present-Shower2920 to nonprofit [link] [comments]
I posted in here several times throughout the past few months (on a few different accounts lol), and asked for advice on my career! For context, I am currently in my first full-time position since graduating college, and it’s an entry-level development position. I have 2 development internships under my belt, so I am currently at about 2 years of nonprofit development experience.
I posted in this sub regarding wanting to move up in development, and needing to make more money (lol). I got wonderful advice from so many people!! This included pathways to move up in development, how important my 2 years of experience is (impostor syndrome), and more. One thing some people said was to look into universities/hospitals, so I did! At first I was hesitant because I prefer orgs. that do more ‘social justice-y’ work, but came to realize that this helps people who can’t afford higher education, medicine, etc.
I applied to one higher education job just because I felt I would be great for this role. It was asking for 1-2 years experience, and I have that, and it’s less customer service-oriented than my current position (which is something I wanted). Long story short, after about a month and a half long process, I got the job!!! It’s fully remote, it’s at a very well-known university, ANDDD it’s a 25% increase in salary for me!!! (I was about to be promoted in my current role and would’ve only had a 7% increase.)
Anywayssss, I’m really, really excited! Im going to be sad leaving my current team, but this is a great opportunity for me. I couldn’t have done it without the kind people in this sub !!! So thank you :)
2024.05.08 01:37 chanchan7601 Money or experience? Big raise, or should I take the co-op?
Hi Everyone,
I could really use some advice as I'm currently at a crossroads in my career, facing two good but very different paths, and I don't have many people to turn to for advice.
My Situation:
I'm 25, studying supply chain and marketing, and set to graduate in December 2024. My resume is decent, with past experience as a project coordinator and current work as a purchasing coordinator. I’ve been eager to move out of my area since I’ve lived here all my life and find it limiting and lack luster.
The Decision:
I'm deciding between staying at my current role or taking a six-month remote co-op position with a Fortune 15 global medical equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor.
I've technically already accepted the co-op role but was then offered $75,000 (up from $53,000) to stay with potential for profit sharing bonuses and another raise in January. In function, my role would transition from purchasing coordinator to operations/purchasing manager. Not in a super strict sense because it's literally just another new hire, and then a warehouse guy who has been around forever, leaving the office team to a whopping 3 people.
The company is run by two co-owners, and one of the owner's sons. They're all sales-focused which leaves the office staff essential in charge of any internal process as they're pretty much hands-off as long as their orders and what not gets handled (this can be frustrating at times).
Current Role - Purchasing Coordinator (Industrial Tool & Equipment DistributoWholesaler):
The company is very small with a lot of cross-function due to it being such a small business.
Co-op Role - Data Analyst (Global Fortune 15 Medical Equipment & Pharmaceutical Manufacturer):
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am quite conflicted.
submitted by chanchan7601 to careerguidance [link] [comments]
I could really use some advice as I'm currently at a crossroads in my career, facing two good but very different paths, and I don't have many people to turn to for advice.
My Situation:
I'm 25, studying supply chain and marketing, and set to graduate in December 2024. My resume is decent, with past experience as a project coordinator and current work as a purchasing coordinator. I’ve been eager to move out of my area since I’ve lived here all my life and find it limiting and lack luster.
The Decision:
I'm deciding between staying at my current role or taking a six-month remote co-op position with a Fortune 15 global medical equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor.
I've technically already accepted the co-op role but was then offered $75,000 (up from $53,000) to stay with potential for profit sharing bonuses and another raise in January. In function, my role would transition from purchasing coordinator to operations/purchasing manager. Not in a super strict sense because it's literally just another new hire, and then a warehouse guy who has been around forever, leaving the office team to a whopping 3 people.
The company is run by two co-owners, and one of the owner's sons. They're all sales-focused which leaves the office staff essential in charge of any internal process as they're pretty much hands-off as long as their orders and what not gets handled (this can be frustrating at times).
Current Role - Purchasing Coordinator (Industrial Tool & Equipment DistributoWholesaler):
The company is very small with a lot of cross-function due to it being such a small business.
- Time in Role: 12 months
- Team Size: Less than 10
- Offered Position: Purchasing/Operations Manager
- Offered Salary: $75,000 (up from $53,000)
- Pros:
- Immediate raise to $75k and full health insurance coverage
- Freedom and autonomy due to the small business environment
- Relatively low-stress work environment
- Full control over operations with opportunities to implement changes
- Clear path to six figures and potential partial ownership
- Resume boost from purchasing coordinator to manager
- Cons:
- Office-based, five days a week
- Significant responsibility with little support (management is mostly focused on sales)
- Limits my ability to leave the area or gain co-op experience
- Few established processes; changes rely heavily on trial and error with little support
- Not a lot of real experience as a lot of what we do is very much done in a small business way (throw shit at the wall and see what works) and not very sophisticated.
Co-op Role - Data Analyst (Global Fortune 15 Medical Equipment & Pharmaceutical Manufacturer):
- Pros:
- Valuable experience at a global company
- New analytical skills for my resume
- Remote work
- Potential job offer, though not guaranteed
- Broadens my resume for future flexibility as I do not have any analytical roles on my resume
- Cons:
- Pay is $23 per hour without health insurance (though my university can cover this)
- No guaranteed role post co-op
- Uncertainty around how this co-op will be valued due to me already having work experience
- Leaving a substantial immediate pay raise
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am quite conflicted.
2024.05.08 01:30 chanchan7601 Advice needed - Money or experience?? Should I take the co-op?
Hi Everyone,
I could really use some advice as I'm currently at a crossroads in my career, facing two good but very different paths, and I don't have many people to turn to for advice.
My Situation:
I'm 25, studying supply chain and marketing, and set to graduate in December 2024. My resume is decent, with past experience as a project coordinator and current work as a purchasing coordinator. I’ve been eager to move out of my area since I’ve lived here all my life and find it limiting and lack luster.
The Decision:
I'm deciding between staying at my current role or taking a six-month remote co-op position with a Fortune 15 global medical equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor.
I've technically already accepted the co-op role but was then offered $75,000 (up from $53,000) to stay with potential for profit sharing bonuses and another raise in January. In function, my role would transition from purchasing coordinator to operations/purchasing manager. Not in a super strict sense because it's literally just another new hire, and then a warehouse guy who has been around forever, leaving the office team to a whopping 3 people.
The company is run by two co-owners, and one of the owner's sons. They're all sales-focused which leaves the office staff essential in charge of any internal process as they're pretty much hands-off as long as their orders and what not gets handled (this can be frustrating at times).
Current Role - Purchasing Coordinator (Industrial Tool & Equipment DistributoWholesaler):
The company is very small with a lot of cross-function due to it being such a small business.
Co-op Role - Data Analyst (Global Fortune 15 Medical Equipment & Pharmaceutical Manufacturer):
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am quite conflicted.
submitted by chanchan7601 to supplychain [link] [comments]
I could really use some advice as I'm currently at a crossroads in my career, facing two good but very different paths, and I don't have many people to turn to for advice.
My Situation:
I'm 25, studying supply chain and marketing, and set to graduate in December 2024. My resume is decent, with past experience as a project coordinator and current work as a purchasing coordinator. I’ve been eager to move out of my area since I’ve lived here all my life and find it limiting and lack luster.
The Decision:
I'm deciding between staying at my current role or taking a six-month remote co-op position with a Fortune 15 global medical equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor.
I've technically already accepted the co-op role but was then offered $75,000 (up from $53,000) to stay with potential for profit sharing bonuses and another raise in January. In function, my role would transition from purchasing coordinator to operations/purchasing manager. Not in a super strict sense because it's literally just another new hire, and then a warehouse guy who has been around forever, leaving the office team to a whopping 3 people.
The company is run by two co-owners, and one of the owner's sons. They're all sales-focused which leaves the office staff essential in charge of any internal process as they're pretty much hands-off as long as their orders and what not gets handled (this can be frustrating at times).
Current Role - Purchasing Coordinator (Industrial Tool & Equipment DistributoWholesaler):
The company is very small with a lot of cross-function due to it being such a small business.
- Time in Role: 12 months
- Team Size: Less than 10
- Offered Position: Purchasing/Operations Manager
- Offered Salary: $75,000 (up from $53,000)
- Pros:
- Immediate raise to $75k and full health insurance coverage
- Freedom and autonomy due to the small business environment
- Relatively low-stress work environment
- Full control over operations with opportunities to implement changes
- Clear path to six figures and potential partial ownership
- Resume boost from purchasing coordinator to manager
- Cons:
- Office-based, five days a week
- Significant responsibility with little support (management is mostly focused on sales)
- Limits my ability to leave the area or gain co-op experience
- Few established processes; changes rely heavily on trial and error with little support
- Not a lot of real experience as a lot of what we do is very much done in a small business way (throw shit at the wall and see what works) and not very sophisticated.
Co-op Role - Data Analyst (Global Fortune 15 Medical Equipment & Pharmaceutical Manufacturer):
- Pros:
- Valuable experience at a global company
- New analytical skills for my resume
- Remote work
- Potential job offer, though not guaranteed
- Broadens my resume for future flexibility as I do not have any analytical roles on my resume
- Cons:
- Pay is $23 per hour without health insurance (though my university can cover this)
- No guaranteed role post co-op
- Uncertainty around how this co-op will be valued due to me already having work experience
- Leaving a substantial immediate pay raise
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am quite conflicted.
2024.05.08 00:37 ronswansonsmustach How do I gracefully back out of an internship? And how do I tell my advisor I don't like this field?
I'm getting my master's in public history, and my degree requires us to complete two internships if we're writing a thesis. I already have one for oral history set to begin in a couple of weeks and that will continue through the summer. Originally, I was going to do two oral history internships over the summer, but then I got a job at my university, and I had to back out of one of those internships since it couldn't be done remotely. The situation was handled well because I knew both people who would have been my supervisors, and both of them encouraged me to pursue the job opportunity over the internship.
I've met with my advisor and told her that I want to get as much public history experience as possible. I've dabbled in museum work, I'm currently working in archives, and I have a lot of oral history background. I also love editing, so I asked her if academic editing would count. She said it would, offered to reach out to some of her friends who might know something for me, and that was the conversation. Until a few weeks later, when I told her that I wanted to graduate early and so I had to get my last internship finished in the fall. She then suggested a different oral history internship, and I was disappointed.
She does this because I used to work at a fantastic oral history institution and know some of the best oral historians in the field. That doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing when I'm the one to conduct interviews (hint: I'm not very good). It feels like she's forcing me to do oral history when I really don't want to do it anymore — I burned out on all history this semester, but I also had to deal with bad practice in a different class and it turned me off to doing it in the meantime. I already have the internship, too: I talked to the person who would be my supervisor, and she was really sweet and liked me a lot, but I won't be reimbursed for gas and again, I really don't want to do this internship.
In the meantime, I reached out to people I knew to see if they were aware of any internship positions with academic journals. A prof from my undergrad got back to me and is trying to create an internship spot for me at the journal he works at. This sounds ideal to me for a host of reasons, and I would be more likely to hit the internship hour requirements at my own pace and leverage the experience for a potential job in post-grad. Even if he can't get me an internship, I want to be firm with my advisor that I don't want to be an oral historian anymore and that I would rather not do the accepted internship and instead look for academic editing ones. How do I do this gracefully?
submitted by ronswansonsmustach to AskAcademia [link] [comments]
I've met with my advisor and told her that I want to get as much public history experience as possible. I've dabbled in museum work, I'm currently working in archives, and I have a lot of oral history background. I also love editing, so I asked her if academic editing would count. She said it would, offered to reach out to some of her friends who might know something for me, and that was the conversation. Until a few weeks later, when I told her that I wanted to graduate early and so I had to get my last internship finished in the fall. She then suggested a different oral history internship, and I was disappointed.
She does this because I used to work at a fantastic oral history institution and know some of the best oral historians in the field. That doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing when I'm the one to conduct interviews (hint: I'm not very good). It feels like she's forcing me to do oral history when I really don't want to do it anymore — I burned out on all history this semester, but I also had to deal with bad practice in a different class and it turned me off to doing it in the meantime. I already have the internship, too: I talked to the person who would be my supervisor, and she was really sweet and liked me a lot, but I won't be reimbursed for gas and again, I really don't want to do this internship.
In the meantime, I reached out to people I knew to see if they were aware of any internship positions with academic journals. A prof from my undergrad got back to me and is trying to create an internship spot for me at the journal he works at. This sounds ideal to me for a host of reasons, and I would be more likely to hit the internship hour requirements at my own pace and leverage the experience for a potential job in post-grad. Even if he can't get me an internship, I want to be firm with my advisor that I don't want to be an oral historian anymore and that I would rather not do the accepted internship and instead look for academic editing ones. How do I do this gracefully?
2024.05.08 00:17 Turbulent-Kiwi-910 How does My Fire TV stick know what TV I have?
I have a much older Vizio TV so I decided to get a fire TV stick to watch YouTube and stuff with. When I was setting it up, it asked me if I wanted the Fire TV remote to control the tv. I said yes and was expecting a convoluted process, but all it did was play some sound and asked me to adjust the volume. It instantly worked. What processes are going on that allow this to happen? Back in the days of universal remotes, I had to manually scan through codes or try many combinations until it worked. How does this sorcery work?
submitted by Turbulent-Kiwi-910 to NoStupidQuestions [link] [comments]
2024.05.08 00:05 PersonMan1011 Third Shift Help Desk Concerns!
Hi everyone! Some background I just graduated from university with a degree in Information Systems (!) and I landed a remote help desk job for a very large global business (based in US). Pay is damn good, benefits are great, and 100 percent remote (!). Only worry is that the shift is from 12am-8am and while i think that it’s extremely doable and I could handle it, I was more concerned about what the AFTER shift life was like. So please for anyone that has any kind of remote experience like this if you could give some words of wisdom it would be greatly appreciated!!
submitted by PersonMan1011 to ITCareerQuestions [link] [comments]
2024.05.08 00:03 Strict_External678 Prayers Of The Malevolent Moon Chapter 5
The days since Sarah had been found were a blur of statements, reports, and sleepless nights. The official story was that Bill Thompson had suffered a psychotic break, became fixated on the cold cases from the 60s, and murdered Daniel Cobb as part of some delusional ritual. Case closed; the town of Millfield could breathe easy once more.
But Sarah knew better. She'd seen the truth in Bill's eyes in those final moments and had heard the dark certainty in his voice. Millfield hid a secret, one written in blood and shadow. And though Bill was dead, Sarah knew with grim certainty he wasn't the only one guarding it.
She threw herself into research, scouring historical records and online forums for any scrap of information that might shed some light on the mystery. She read and read until late at night, delving into ancient texts and obscure mythologies, trying to find some sort of meaning in the half-glimpsed horrors that Bill had hinted at.
Repeatedly, the name Glaaki was whispered in connection with eldritch rites and unspeakable sacrifices. A being from beyond the stars, sleeping under the earth, waiting to be woken by the spilled blood of the innocent. Was this the Ancient One Bill had spoken of, that he and all others like him had pledged their lives and atrocities to?
But hard answers eluded her, the truth slipping through her fingers like wisps of fog. In the daylight, with the bustle of the police station around her, Sarah could almost convince herself it had all been some sick fantasy, the product of trauma and overwork.
Almost.
Until the second body was found.
She looked down at the corpse, spread out in the middle of a familiar clearing, her heart a heavy weight in her chest. It was Ashley Sutton, the pretty librarian who had been so forthright about Daniel's research. Her throat cut, her bare torso carved with those same twisted geometries that had adorned Daniel's body.
"This is a message," Sheriff Briggs said grimly, his face pale beneath the brim of his hat. "Whoever did this…they're telling us to back off."
She crouched down, examining the runes cut into the cooling flesh. The wounds were too precise, too ritualized, to be a mere copycat. No, this was the same killer. The same dark purpose.
"Bill had accomplices," she murmured. "People who shared his beliefs, his mission. With him gone, they must be trying to continue his work."
Briggs scrubbed a hand over his jaw, rough and stubbled. "Jesus. How many of them d'you think there are?"
"I don't know. But what I know is that they won't stop; not until they have reached whatever demented goal they're after." Sarah said, standing up with a hard-set face. "We need to find them, Sheriff. Stop them before they can kill again."
But even as she said it, Sarah could feel the pressure of shadows bearing down around her, those eyes in the darkness, old and insatiable. Those whispers in the back of her mind: blood, and madness.
In a place deep down that she dared not acknowledge, Sarah feared that maybe they were already too late. The wheels of a horrific plan had been set in motion; all that she did would be for naught against the momentum of an evil centuries in the making.
Still, she had to try. For Daniel. For Ashley. For all the innocent lives she feared would be lost if she didn't find a way to stem the tide of darkness rising beneath Millfield's quiet streets.
It consumed all her time. She interviewed witnesses, followed up leads, went into the backgrounds of everyone remotely related to the victims. But the trail always led to mist, and the suspects always had iron-clad alibis. Like smoke, killers would slip through her fingers and elude her grasp, never to be found.
The murmurs grew ever louder. The shadows grew darker. Her dreams were haunted by visions of blood and stone, of twisted forms writhing in the darkness below the earth. She awoke soaked in sweat and trembling, her mouth filled with the taste of blood.
She knew, with a certainty that transcended reason, that time was running out. That the servitors of those ancient things were on the brink of something world-shattering. Every instinct in her screamed to run, to flee this cursed town and its eldritch secrets before she, too, could be swallowed by the gathering dark.
But she couldn't. Wouldn't. Not when there was still the slightest chance of preventing the horrors that were to ensue.
So Sarah soldiered on, even as the shadows lengthened and the weight of unseen eyes bore down upon her, and found the third body, and the fourth, each more grotesque than the last.
She poured over ancient texts, followed up whispered rumors, bargained, and threatened for scraps of forbidden lore. The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place, painting a picture of cyclopean horror that threatened to shatter her sanity.
For what lay asleep underneath Millfield was so much more than a cult's dark god. It was a piece of primordial chaos, an eldritch intelligence from the unfathomed depths of the universe. A being that had planted its seed of taint upon the Earth eons ago, waiting for the time when the stars would align once more and the sealed gate be thrown open.
The murders, the rituals. they were all in service of this impending apocalypse. Every drop of spilled blood weakened the barriers a little more, eased open the metaphysical locks trapping the ancient ones in their stygian prison.
And now the locks were straining, the very air humming with the dissonant resonance of their imminent failure. Sarah could feel it in her bones, see it in the shadows that twisted in ways that defied physics. The veil was thinning; the darkness pushed through.
When the next body was found, spread-eagled in the centre of town as if in mocking invitation, Sarah knew the end was upon them. The runes on the disembowelled torso were a message, a promise of the horrors yet to come.
The final seal was broken. The way was open. And all of Millfield would be the sacrifice to usher in a new age of Eldritch nightmares.
Standing at the edge of the abyss, Sarah felt how heavily the gun on her hip weighed; this knew, however, that it was the only thing standing between this world and the horrors that lurked over the threshold.
But what could one mortal woman do against such primordial evil? What hope did she have of stemming this overwhelming tide of shadows?
Tired. So hollow, the gales of truth she'd caught sight of in the darkness, that the temptation was to give in to the madness that would take her—this was a siren song in her blood.
But she couldn't. For the sake of every innocent soul, who didn't know the end coming their way, she had to fight, even if it cost her soul and sanity.
Sarah Reeves squared her shoulders, checked her ammunition, and stepped out into the unnatural twilight settling over Millfield. Out to meet her destiny, for good or ill. The shadows twisted in anticipation. The ancients were roused in their feated dreams. And lastly, Sarah's final thought as the darkness surged up to claim her was that at least she had met this horror on her terms. At least she had gone down fighting. Even though in the end it turned out to be all for nothing.
The End?
submitted by Strict_External678 to scarystories [link] [comments]
But Sarah knew better. She'd seen the truth in Bill's eyes in those final moments and had heard the dark certainty in his voice. Millfield hid a secret, one written in blood and shadow. And though Bill was dead, Sarah knew with grim certainty he wasn't the only one guarding it.
She threw herself into research, scouring historical records and online forums for any scrap of information that might shed some light on the mystery. She read and read until late at night, delving into ancient texts and obscure mythologies, trying to find some sort of meaning in the half-glimpsed horrors that Bill had hinted at.
Repeatedly, the name Glaaki was whispered in connection with eldritch rites and unspeakable sacrifices. A being from beyond the stars, sleeping under the earth, waiting to be woken by the spilled blood of the innocent. Was this the Ancient One Bill had spoken of, that he and all others like him had pledged their lives and atrocities to?
But hard answers eluded her, the truth slipping through her fingers like wisps of fog. In the daylight, with the bustle of the police station around her, Sarah could almost convince herself it had all been some sick fantasy, the product of trauma and overwork.
Almost.
Until the second body was found.
She looked down at the corpse, spread out in the middle of a familiar clearing, her heart a heavy weight in her chest. It was Ashley Sutton, the pretty librarian who had been so forthright about Daniel's research. Her throat cut, her bare torso carved with those same twisted geometries that had adorned Daniel's body.
"This is a message," Sheriff Briggs said grimly, his face pale beneath the brim of his hat. "Whoever did this…they're telling us to back off."
She crouched down, examining the runes cut into the cooling flesh. The wounds were too precise, too ritualized, to be a mere copycat. No, this was the same killer. The same dark purpose.
"Bill had accomplices," she murmured. "People who shared his beliefs, his mission. With him gone, they must be trying to continue his work."
Briggs scrubbed a hand over his jaw, rough and stubbled. "Jesus. How many of them d'you think there are?"
"I don't know. But what I know is that they won't stop; not until they have reached whatever demented goal they're after." Sarah said, standing up with a hard-set face. "We need to find them, Sheriff. Stop them before they can kill again."
But even as she said it, Sarah could feel the pressure of shadows bearing down around her, those eyes in the darkness, old and insatiable. Those whispers in the back of her mind: blood, and madness.
In a place deep down that she dared not acknowledge, Sarah feared that maybe they were already too late. The wheels of a horrific plan had been set in motion; all that she did would be for naught against the momentum of an evil centuries in the making.
Still, she had to try. For Daniel. For Ashley. For all the innocent lives she feared would be lost if she didn't find a way to stem the tide of darkness rising beneath Millfield's quiet streets.
It consumed all her time. She interviewed witnesses, followed up leads, went into the backgrounds of everyone remotely related to the victims. But the trail always led to mist, and the suspects always had iron-clad alibis. Like smoke, killers would slip through her fingers and elude her grasp, never to be found.
The murmurs grew ever louder. The shadows grew darker. Her dreams were haunted by visions of blood and stone, of twisted forms writhing in the darkness below the earth. She awoke soaked in sweat and trembling, her mouth filled with the taste of blood.
She knew, with a certainty that transcended reason, that time was running out. That the servitors of those ancient things were on the brink of something world-shattering. Every instinct in her screamed to run, to flee this cursed town and its eldritch secrets before she, too, could be swallowed by the gathering dark.
But she couldn't. Wouldn't. Not when there was still the slightest chance of preventing the horrors that were to ensue.
So Sarah soldiered on, even as the shadows lengthened and the weight of unseen eyes bore down upon her, and found the third body, and the fourth, each more grotesque than the last.
She poured over ancient texts, followed up whispered rumors, bargained, and threatened for scraps of forbidden lore. The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place, painting a picture of cyclopean horror that threatened to shatter her sanity.
For what lay asleep underneath Millfield was so much more than a cult's dark god. It was a piece of primordial chaos, an eldritch intelligence from the unfathomed depths of the universe. A being that had planted its seed of taint upon the Earth eons ago, waiting for the time when the stars would align once more and the sealed gate be thrown open.
The murders, the rituals. they were all in service of this impending apocalypse. Every drop of spilled blood weakened the barriers a little more, eased open the metaphysical locks trapping the ancient ones in their stygian prison.
And now the locks were straining, the very air humming with the dissonant resonance of their imminent failure. Sarah could feel it in her bones, see it in the shadows that twisted in ways that defied physics. The veil was thinning; the darkness pushed through.
When the next body was found, spread-eagled in the centre of town as if in mocking invitation, Sarah knew the end was upon them. The runes on the disembowelled torso were a message, a promise of the horrors yet to come.
The final seal was broken. The way was open. And all of Millfield would be the sacrifice to usher in a new age of Eldritch nightmares.
Standing at the edge of the abyss, Sarah felt how heavily the gun on her hip weighed; this knew, however, that it was the only thing standing between this world and the horrors that lurked over the threshold.
But what could one mortal woman do against such primordial evil? What hope did she have of stemming this overwhelming tide of shadows?
Tired. So hollow, the gales of truth she'd caught sight of in the darkness, that the temptation was to give in to the madness that would take her—this was a siren song in her blood.
But she couldn't. For the sake of every innocent soul, who didn't know the end coming their way, she had to fight, even if it cost her soul and sanity.
Sarah Reeves squared her shoulders, checked her ammunition, and stepped out into the unnatural twilight settling over Millfield. Out to meet her destiny, for good or ill. The shadows twisted in anticipation. The ancients were roused in their feated dreams. And lastly, Sarah's final thought as the darkness surged up to claim her was that at least she had met this horror on her terms. At least she had gone down fighting. Even though in the end it turned out to be all for nothing.
The End?
2024.05.08 00:01 alfonsaberg1 I cant take it much longer
In a month i will graduate school, but my grades are too bad for university, so i will be stuck with a low paying job for the rest of my life. All these expectations on me to be smart, get good grades and then a good job. Im simply too dumb. No one takes me seriously. They dont listen. I try to talk to someone in my life but they just tell me i will be fine, when i clearly wont be fine. And to make things worse i have crippling gender dysphoria that never goes away. Transitioning is such an expensive process and its so slow aswell, all this work only to still look like a man. While I should have put that effort into school my dysphoria was just too bad to live with. But even with all my effort I still look like a man. I understand that i will never have a body im even remotely comfortable with. Im just too dumb and depressed to ever get anywere in life. Im realize now that i was doomed to kill myself eventually, nothing could have prevented it. I dont know how much longer i have left, but i know that i will snap soon. Im sorry that my parents invested 19 years into such a failure as me.
submitted by alfonsaberg1 to SuicideWatch [link] [comments]
2024.05.07 23:48 Reasonable-Neck-6800 Applied to over 3k+ jobs and still no positive response/interviews. What am I doing wrong? Any help would be highly appreciated🙏
submitted by Reasonable-Neck-6800 to resumes [link] [comments]
2024.05.07 23:38 Lanzen_Jars A job for a deathworlder [Chapter 166]
[Chapter 1] ; [Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon]
Chapter 166 – The undisputed masters of hyperspace James felt every hair in his body stand up as the Sun jerked slightly under his feet. Meanwhile, the previous 'U.F.O.' alert had been replaced by a full on 'hostile ships' alert.
What the hell was going on out there?
A few moment later, the door to the safe-room opened, a large group of people waiting on the other side. It seemed that the active alert really had kicked the securing of all non-essential personnel into high-gear.
James stood back and watched quietly as people flooded in, taking passive notice of the people themselves. Medical personnel and people from med-enge took up a large portion of them, and they all walked in a practiced and orderly fashion. Drills for this sort of situation were not an uncommon thing on board of a military ship like this, so even though this was under much more serious conditions, the endless repetition of what to do in such a situation kept people calm and 'in their roles' so to speak. After the first large group of people had passed the doors and moved to the far-side of the room, there was a second group still waiting outside, which now began the process of gradually pushing medical beds into the promised safety.
Luckily, the Sun's intensive care units weren't exactly filled to the brim at the time, meaning there were just three patients currently sick enough that they required their beds and some machinery to be brought along with them in this part of the ship.
James' very own former surgeon Dr. Schram was next to one of them, currently monitoring a dark-haired patient who, by the look of things, appeared to be recovering from the recent attaching of a prosthetic hand.
Another one appeared to be a nervous looking young mother, whose hair was sticky with sweat that also covered her entire face as she did her best to hide any nervousness while holding a tightly bundled-up newborn against her chest, gently bouncing it with on arm while tightly clutching the hand of an out-of-uniform soldier who James recognized from a few very brief meetings with the other.
And of course, the third one...
James rushed up to the bed, positioning himself next to Tuya who was currently helping the medical personnel push Nia into the room while a female doctor with long blonde but already graying hair seemingly monitored her patient with the medical devices that were still attached to James' unconscious sister.
“Is everything alright?” he asked nervously, doing his best to stay out of the way even though he really wanted to get right next to her.
“Your sister is stable, Lt. Aldwin,” the Doctor confirmed for him without delay. “Luckily, she started breathing on her own again a few hours ago, so the ventilator is simply a precaution now. If she continues to take to the treatment as she did, she should wake up in the near future.”
James released a shaky breath that was nonetheless filled with relief at the fact that Nia appeared to be in no mortal danger from needing to be moved.
Tuya gave James a brief, encouraging smile before pushing the bed onward together with some nurses, quickly making sure that their patients wouldn't take up too much of the safe-room's space.
Forming the anchor behind the hard-to-move beds, a last group comprised of soldiers finally entered the room as well. They were mostly ground-troops who, much like James, wouldn't be of much direct use in a confrontation between ships, meaning that they were instead stationed within the safe-rooms in order to guard those inside in case they would need protection for any reason after the worst possibly occurred.
However, in this case, a few not-quite-fit for duty figures were among them as well, some of them dragging themselves into the room with as much of a problem standing up with their own strength as James had.
Koko especially seemed to be entirely out of it and had to fully rely on Andrej to hold her upright as James' entire team was feeling the aftereffects of the previous night.
Well...almost James' entire team.
“Whe...” he said as he walked up to them, glancing over the group a couple of times to make sure he didn't miss anyone as a queasy feeling rose up in his stomach. “Where is Shida?”
Among all of the many, many humans that had entered the room together to find relative safety, there wasn't a myiat in sight.
“Where-?” James tried to ask again before the gaze of Athena suddenly hit him, her icy blue eyes boring into his.
“Went to the hangar,” she said, and although she was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol, the Captain's voice had a severity to it that James only knew from their past missions together. “She's got a job to do.”
In all honesty, she might as well have shot right through him with one of her rifles, as James stood there turning paler and paler as all blood rushed right out of his face.
They traveled around together so much and were usually so close to each other that it was quite easy to forget but...Shida wasn't like him. She wasn't some planet-side grunt; she was Lieutenant-Commander. Unlike him, she knew damn well how to fly a ship, and she was more than capable of holding her own in a space battle. Well, at least James had to assume so. It wasn't like he had ever seen her truly in action.
And, unlike the rest of the team, she couldn't have alcohol either, meaning as the only one of them, she was stone sober when the alarm blared.
His eyes twitched over to Koko for a moment. Usually, she'd be out there with her. Not only that, but as Commander, she would coordinate a large number of the ships out there. But now, she could barely stand. She could barely stand because she and James had decided to 'make the evening count'. And make it count they did. And now...she was completely down for the count.
“Whoa there!” one of the uniformed soldiers announced as James suddenly felt two strong arms reaching under his armpits, catching him and holding him in place. He hadn't even noticed himself tipping over. His legs had just lost their strength all of a sudden.
“This...can't be-” he mumbled but couldn't even get the whole sentence out as the world suddenly began spinning around him again. So far, the adrenaline as well as other chemicals both natural and not had done quite well at warding off the effects of his intoxication and had kept him going for a bit.
But now, all at once, he suddenly only felt how his stomach churned.
–
“Destruction of eleven enemy ships confirmed,” a middle-aged zodiatos trumpeted in jubilation, thrusting her trunk up into a y-shape as she lifted her head up so quickly that she almost reared up onto her hind legs for a moment. “The system's of one more are heavily damaged, leaving it incapacitated.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren closed his eyes for a moment. Unlike his inferior, he didn't cheer or even so much as smiled. With his eyes closed, he held his breath while slowly lifting his split trunk over his shoulder. Using its end that had half of it missing, he slowly glided along the scar on the right side of his body, following the ridge of bumpy, calloused skin all the way from his brow down to his back, until he could reach no further. Even after many years of having it, the sensation of injured flesh rubbing against injured flesh never felt quite right, and yet the feeling somehow grounded him. Kept him in the moment. Gave him a feeling of purpose.
“The human ship?” he then finally asked, using the sentence to release the breath that he had been holding in a slow and controlled manner. They must have been prepared for an attack. Their hyperspace generators had been ready for a jump. They likely prepared it long before the shots were fired.
“Made a very short jump,” the answer to his question came not even a second later from another one of his officers. “Reemerged immediately around a light-second away.”
A light-second jump? Maybe they weren't as prepared as he thought. They must've barely gotten the generators fired up enough for travel.
“Immediately fire more Orderguards in their direction,” he ordered. “We cannot allow them a clean shot with their weaponry.”
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied with eagerness. The young bull was a good bit smaller than Nahfmir-Durrehefren and nowhere near as well-built, however he certainly didn't lack in motivation as he used his terminal to fire at the newly re-positioned enemy. He had already given his other ships the order to fire in the direction of the other two human combatants, even as they remained too far away to actually be threatened by the Orderguards. A direct hit from one of their FTL-weapons would spell an almost certain end for one of his ships, so he had to make sure to keep obstacles between them at all times.
“Once those rounds are out, remove the remaining coluyvoree,” Nahfmir-Durrehefren then added onto his orders. His fellow coreworlders were by far the lower threat and could be taken out with conventional weaponry as long as the Orderguards provided cover for his own ships.
Hopefully, they would realize they were outmatched and would use this brief grace-period that he granted them to mount their escape. Killing them was a shame, truly, but he had his orders. And he would fulfill them to his last breath if he had to.
“Be smart and fall back,” he thought to himself as he looked at the pristine white ships that hadn't been turned into scrap yet. With eleven ships destroyed and one out of commission, the coluyvoree may have technically still outnumbered his own little attack fleet, but still, they had to realize they stood no chance. There was no need for them to die a senseless death here.
Although of course, they didn't know that. Surely their hearts burned with the same sense of duty as his did, as they simply had to assume that their home was under attack, and that they were the only ones who could yet defend it.
How much he wished that he could've told them otherwise.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren lowered his gaze slightly as his ears began to flap. As always, the slit splitting his right-ear in two caused some mild, pulling pain whenever it moved a bit too fast, but he was so used to it that he barely noticed. Still, it reminded him of how he had gotten it.
“Just like old times, old friend,” he quietly mumbled to himself, thinking of the good lives that would be tragically and senselessly lost.
“Travel-sized hyperspace-stretches detected!” one of his officers yelled out, pulling him out of his melancholic yet nostalgia filled thoughts.
“They are jumping again?” he wondered, looking up to the screen. Were they already dodging? Probably. They had seen how destructive these weapons could be. However, stretches -plural- implied the other ships were moving as well. They were too far away to be afraid of the incoming fire. Maybe a strategic repositioning?
“Keep up the fire on the Flagship's new position,” he ordered first to make sure his gunner wouldn't forget to keep their cover up. Then he turned his attention to the currently more strategically important targets. “Where have the cruisers moved? Are they closer?”
As he asked, his eyes already moved over to the screen before him to confirm their position for himself. However, as they fell upon it, they found that the readings they saw there were quite...confounding.
“Negative, Sir, none of the ships have moved from their position!” his officer shouted, all the while his eyes were treated to the sight of the indicators for large hyperspace-stretches rising and falling on his screen, jumping up and down like a frequency or...like a heartbeat. The activity was so large and constant that it was hard for the sensors to even pin down how many stretches were being generated and where they emerged. Space was stretched and pulled constantly like a deflated balloon in the hands of a toddler, not truly allowed to fully settle for even a moment as stretch after stretch tugged at its integrity.
Feeling his eyes widen, he exhaled slowly, and once again ran his permanently injured trunk over his scar.
“All ships! Fire a protective volley immediately!” he then ordered. He didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't going to take any chances with it. They were going to completely protect themselves while they figured it out. There was no way he was going to let himself be blindsided while he thought.
All gunner complied immediately, and soon enough the ship vibrated ever so slightly as it shot out the massive projectile that, along with its brethren, soon formed the protective bubble of destructive energy around his forces.
“Visuals?” he then asked, causing the officer to switch her attention to a different window on her terminal.
“Should be reaching us any second, Sir,” she then finally replied. “I'm putting it through to you.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren nodded and lifted his gaze. Viewed on a screen through the feed of a camera, void-sickness was luckily a much smaller problem, especially for someone as experienced as he was, as he looked upon the video-broadcast of the black, human ship hovering in space.
To say that he 'saw' the ship would've been an overstatement. It was so dark that any direct features were nigh impossible to make out. The only reason it was somewhat visible at all was that it blocked enough light to become perceivable as a dark shadow pushing itself through space.
Soon enough, the hazy energy around the Orderguards was already taking away his vision again as it built up, but not before he saw what had happened that had caused his sensors to become so overloaded with input.
Bright sparks came from the human ship, lighting up its dark shape against the empty space, briefly making its form appear in its full glory before turning dark again. First there was one, but it was almost immediately followed by another. Then another. Then two more. Five more. Ten more.
More and more sparks of light poured out of the ship up like shooting stars, lighting up the void for fractions of seconds at a time in a colorful spectacle that Nahfmir-Durrehefren could only truly compare to fireworks rapid-firing out of a pyrotechnics machine.
However, in reality, they could only be one thing...
“They're sending out fighters!” he announced loudly. It was unlikely that none of his officers had made the connection themselves yet, but it was important that he got everyone onto the same wavelength quickly. “Prepare ships for interception!”
They didn't have long. Luckily the Orderguards were protecting them, otherwise it may have already been too late.
“Shooting out their fighters through hyperspace...” he mumbled to himself once things were set into motion for his own ships to engage the incoming crafts, figuring that the flagship must've rapid-fire generated the small stretches for the fighters to inject into so they wouldn't be vulnerable as they emerged from their hangars and also so they would reach their targets of attack much, much faster. “Almost stupidly daring, but clever...very clever.”
However, thanks to some quick thinking, it would ultimately be pointless. Their targets were protected from them right now. And once the protective bubble fell, they would have to deal with his own fighters. And that was a fight that even the humans weren't going to win, even if the numbers were on their side.
It was still peculiar to see these new models of fighters as they emerged from his ship and into the view of his cameras. They were comparatively small and round, and in each direction an extremely long 'spike' stuck out of their hull, much longer than the ships themselves were. It really was a good thing that one didn't have to worry about aerodynamics in space, otherwise the design would've looked even more utterly foolish than it already appeared.
However, there was method to the madness, as their foes on the battlefield would soon find.
The fighters flew in a widespread formation, leaving a lot of room between each of them as they positioned themselves along the corners of the generated grid of cubes that space had been divided into by their computers. And once they had reached their place in the formation, the long 'spikes' began to show their purpose as their ends 'activated' and erupted in the Orderguards' hazy energy, forming a protective network of spheres around them just like the one that had just temporarily protected their mother ships – just on a much smaller and more manageable scale. The ship itself was then situated in a small, empty space in the middle between the spheres.
The spikes were made of a durable and very conductive alloy, specifically designed to withstand the extreme energy output on a small scale as the emerging spheres protected the ships, leaving them nigh-invulnerable to enemy fighters' attacks.
The humans may have been valiant warriors, but this was not a conflict they were going to win. “Keep pushing the fighters with more shots,” he ordered, knowing it would be bad if he gave the small fighter craft swarming around his ships the chance to freely use their numbers to their advantage too much. Luckily, the Orderguards' wide sphere of effectiveness was quite efficient when it came to pressuring small craft specifically, as they would have to divert whatever they were doing to get out of the way of the massive projectiles. If they were caught lacking, there was a good chance a whole group of them would even get inevitable caught in the path of one.
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied, the enthusiasm in his voice not wavering one bit. It seemed that he was eager to shoot a couple of the primates out of the sky.
The protective bubble of their fired projectiles now gradually dispersed as they flew too far apart for their spheres to still interlock with each other – leaving the stage open for the fighters to engage with each other.
Despite their reduced size, one of the zodiatos ships was easily thrice the size of a human vessel, even when not counting the enormous shield that surrounded them. This made the human ships a good bit faster and more maneuverable, however his own fighters had the advantage that they could comfortably pursue human ships in close combat as any contact with their shields would be utterly devastating for such small vessels and the chance of retaliation against the shield was absolutely minimal.
And then there was of course the supporting Orderguard fire from the larger ships – something that the humans had to worry about a lot more than the zodiatos with their own shields.
Soon enough, the barely visible human fighters pushed into the gaps between the drifting-apart spheres like shadows creeping under a door – however Nahfmir-Durrehefren's own loyal pilots were already awaiting them there.
In the corner of his eye, he also saw his ever-motivated gunner get a glint in his eyes as he realized just how splendid of a funnel the Orderguards had formed for the human ships, leaving many of them to fly in what may as well have been in single file, with a lot of momentum carrying them right in the direction of his cannons.
A dream shot for an artilleryman if Nahfmir-Durrehefren had ever seen one. And the young man was clearly not going to miss it.
As the ship shook ever so slightly as the youngster took the shot, Nahfmir-Durrehefren looked upon the visual broadcast of the engagement. Just how would the humans react to such a foe like they had never faced before? At the very least, he could respect that they were facing it head-on.
Some simple fire was exchanged as soon as the combatants 'laid eyes on' each other, and the result was expectedly one-sided. The human ships were forced to swivel and swerve in evasive maneuvers to avoid the shots while their own projectiles and explosives simply fizzled against the zodiatos' shields.
In his head, Nahfmir-Durrehefren remembered a very old saying that he had once been told while visiting a museum that told of combat.
“When given the choice between the axe and the shield, the wise warrior will always choose the shield.”
For a very long time in their modern world of spacial warfare, that choice had never existed, so everyone had run around looking to find the biggest and sharpest axe to beat the others out with it. But now the rules had changed.
And once again, the wise warriors had gone for the shield.
After their pilots had received the message of the incoming fire-support as well as its travel path along the grid, their formation burst apart and reformed in an even wider arch that ultimately resembled a slowly closing maw around the human fighters.
With the Orderguard on its way, the pilots began herding as many of their deathworld opponents into its path as possible while blocking their possible routes of escape with weapons' fire as well as their very own shields, forming a very hard to escape funnel-net to catch these flies in.
Meanwhile, many of their possible ways to back out were still blocked by the previous volley of Orderguards that gradually drifted out into space.
All his ships had to do now was to keep up their formation and fire at any humans trying to escape the trap and making themselves an easy target. The rest would be handled by the heavy weaponry. “Remember to keep a barrier between us and the larger ships,” he once again reminded his soldiers, still not eager to be on the receiving end of one of their shots.
Though still, his attention was mostly drawn to the human fighters. He was still curious how they would try to deal with this kind of opponent. After all, there would be a lot to learn from their reaction to facing an unknown force, even if their chances at victory were slim.
They must have realized by now that they were drawn into a trap. He was sure of it. They didn't seem like the kind to not notice it. But knowing one had walked into a trap only mattered if one knew how to escape it. Would they make a break for it? Maybe try to sacrifice some while letting a larger part escape?
“Show me your trunk, humans...” he mumbled silently as he observed.
And the humans indeed turned from their current course. Though, to his surprise, they didn't actually fly a curve at all. Instead, they seemed to shut off most of their engines for a moment, only using some front thrusters to turn themselves away from their current direction while still being carried onward by their own momentum.
Like that, they drifted along for a moment, turning in their motion to face their opposing fighters head on.
“A last stand?” Nahfmir-Durrehefren wondered quietly to himself, seeing just how much of their speed the human ships had sacrificed in that slow turn. Even if they still had some momentum, it would be a very close call for them to speed up enough to avoid the incoming Orderguard that they had to know was coming by now. And that wasn't even mentioning how open they were leaving themselves to fire from the zodiatos fighters with speed this low. Might they be throwing everything they had at their opponents in a last blaze of glory, consequences be damned?
Though, with an interested tilt of his head and a slight lift of his trunk, Nahfmir-Durrehefren realized after a brief moment that the humans' drifting wasn't quite as uncontrolled as he had figured, because once they had reached the angle that they seemingly desired and stopped their turning momentum, he noticed that the human fighter vessels were now drifting in rows of three, always two ships lining up behind one leading one closest to the outside barricade of his forces, and each ship in one row was just ever so slightly offset from the ones in front of it so that they didn't quite form a perfect line. Clearly there was method to it.
By now, the newly fired Orderguard heading right down the funnel was growing to a size that threatened this newly formed human formation, also slowly blocking the sight of it from Nahfmir-Durrehefren. By now, it was probably too late for them to get out of the way after they did whatever they were planning there. A blaze of glory it was...
In the corner of his eyes, there was a bit of movement catching his attention all of a sudden. On one of his other screens, the sensors were once again going wild.
“Hyperspace detected!” his officer yelled out as her head snapped up, her posture stiffening severely as he watched the same thing unfold as Nahfmir-Durrehefren himself witnessed. The detected signatures were incredibly different from the ones that typical, stable hyperspace meant for travel exuded.
They knew the humans possessed this technology, of course. Now, it was time to see how their axe would stack up against his shield.
“Have at thee...” he mumbled as the apes took their last stand.
His direct sight of the small ships was already taken away by the expanding sphere of energy heading towards their destruction at this point. However, he didn't need to see them to know what was happening right there.
Especially not as the rainbow-colored flashes shot out from their obscured position, just before the deadly sphere would make contact with the first of the fighters.
Oh, how he wondered if the shots were going to penetrate. So much so that he dared not look away, even as the bright flashing lights burned themselves into his eyes in a brief vision of infinity.
Of course, everything happened so incredibly, unthinkably fast that what truly occurred was only comprehensible after the fact, as everything moved faster than a thought could even be formed; as even a single firing of a synapse occurred almost indefinably slow in comparison to the action itself. Faster than thought. Faster than light. Faster than even the universe itself could react.
He saw the large explosion as enormous quantities of energy erupted outwards from the impact as shots indeed connected with the shields, but...something was wrong. His subconscious knew it long before any reasoned thought could be formed as the picture was burned into his eyes, but something. Was. Wrong.
There were more lines now. More lines than the ones that had shot outwards from the ships and the shots...the shots had come from the wrong direction.
He never got to satisfy his lust to know whether the shields could withstand a shot of those weapons, as far more than just one hammered into the backs of each individual ship, battering them down with an unloading of energy that was too much for pretty much anything to withstand on such a small scale. And as soon as the shields were burst apart, even more shots hammered the ships on the inside, obliterating them in fiery balls that were contained by the remaining, still-active shield generators for just a moment before those lost power as well and left the brightly glowing, super-heated remains to float in place as temporary miniature suns.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren's eyes shot around to the sensors. They had been flanked by a so far unseen regiment? Where did those ships come from? Another one of the surrounding 'funnels' must have been breached...
However, that wasn't the case. Because at all of the other opened corners and gaps of their dispersing temporary shields, it seemed like this exact phenomenon was occurring at the same time.
But if the other fronts were also only broken now, then where did those-
Suddenly, something zapped past his camera with a bright glow, leaving an afterglow in his eye. And then there was another. Then another. Then ten more. Soon enough, he had to avert his eyes as the screen stopped showing him the darkness of space with the occasional light. And it was instead filled with a brightly glowing web of lines. No...not lines. Stretches. Hyprspace-stretches – multiple dozens of them. All of them dispersing as soon as they appeared, only to be near immediately replaced by another one.
The entire void all around the zodiatos ship became light from the sparkling stretches, outshining even the system's nearby star. Meanwhile all of the sensors that could even remotely detect a stretch went absolutely haywire.
Was...was each of the fighters..?
One of the stretches then dispersed right in their view, leaving the black ship that emerged from it standing out in amazing contrast from the bright background with its near true-black color. The ship drifted there for less than the blink of an eye – only just long enough to fire off a single shot of its physics-defying weaponry – before it immediately disappeared in yet another flash of light.
A strong tremor suddenly shook the ship so heavily that the ground was momentarily pulled out from under Nahfmir-Durrehefren's feet. Reacting quickly, he managed to land back on all fours again, even if the sudden unwanted jump caused some jolting pain in his ankles as he landed. Some of his officers weren't so lucky and toppled over where they stood, grunting out in pain as their massive bodies hit the ground.
Grimacing against the pain and wrapping his trunk firmly around a nearby railing to anchor himself, Nahfmir-Durrehefren didn't need the ship's blaring alarms to tell him that they had suffered a hit. A brief glimpse at the diagnostics on his screen told him that their engines had been struck. The shot must've come from right behind them – from the inside of their ships' formation. They had...just flown past them...right through their formation...
The scene replayed before his inner eye. A hyperspace jump that was nowhere near far enough to justify using such an engine. A brief emergence to fire a shot. And then an immediate retreat back into hyperspace. Repeated, all around him, who knew how many times each second...
They could generated it that fast...and not for a moment did they appear so much as disoriented...
He was out of it for a moment, just staring wide-eyed. But then, he let go of the railing again, as his trunk found its way to his scare once more, grounding him. He let out a long exhale.
“Well, old friend,” he said to himself as he felt scar tissue rub along scar tissue, once again thinking back to the day that he had received this injury. “Guess things are going as planned after all...”
–
“12-12, A-D,” a message reached Shida's ear, causing it to slightly twitch as the voice talked right into it through the strapped-on headphones that wrapped around her head.
“I'm aware, thanks D-F,” she replied through the comm herself, having already noticed the ship as soon as she had emerged back in normal space.
The thing was huge and almost entirely obscured by whatever that weird, opaque stuff was that these things generated. As it noticed that she had emerged so closely to it, it seemed to see its best chance at getting her by accelerating to ramming-speed.
Shida pulled at her steering a bit, but it was no use. With that mass of undefined energy barreling towards her, she wouldn't have enough time to turn for a shot. Better cut her losses.
Pulling the break for a moment, she activated one of her forwards thrusters as she adjusted to the stated and predicted routes of her surrounding allies on the grid so she wouldn't accidentally intercept with any of them as she jumped away.
This caused her to drift sideways for a moment, which in turn caused the charging wall of energy to gain on her as she slowed down, while also allowing her a better view of it through her front window.
She turned her head to the side a bit and adjusted the goggles over her eyes slightly as the ball of hazy death headed right for her broadside, becoming exponentially larger to her eyes by the second. She delayed her jump a smidge just to look at it a moment longer. It was almost beautiful in a strange way. So strange, so...alien.
However, before she could get into serious trouble in case the pilot of that thing decided to actually pull the trigger instead of just rushing her, she hit the engines and jumped out of there.
It was like blinking. For half a heartbeat, everything outside of her windows went entirely black. Then, she was already in another place, still drifting sideways the same way she had done before the jump. Only now, the nose of her ship was pointed right at a target that way.
As she pulled the trigger, her brightly glittering shot flew right past one of those burning orbs that the enemy fighters were turning into whenever their destruction was contained by their own shields.
But unlike a real star, these miniature versions were by far not enough to make her shot curve and pull away from its target, meaning that it crashed right into the fighters' shield.
Those things were impressive. A direct hit with a relativity canon, and yet the fighter was still going. Those shields were tough as boars. Though...it seemed they could only pull that trick off one time before they hard to regenerate, as the rear shield burst apart with the hit of her weapon, dispersing the energy of the impact all around, leaving the ship wide open for another shot from this angle.
Still, if these things could tank a relativity shot, even if it was just a small one from an unkindness-class, there couldn't be much else that could get through those shields. Just what was that strange haze...?
“A-D-” another comm sounded into her ear, however she was already in the process of hitting the engines.
“I got it,” she said as she jumped again, quickly flashing out of the way of an incoming rocket.
As she reappeared in normal space, she could the explosion of the thing go off far in the distance within the corner of her vision, not even seconds away from actually hitting her ship had she not moved.
Say what you will, but these bastards were persistent...
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Chapter 166 – The undisputed masters of hyperspace James felt every hair in his body stand up as the Sun jerked slightly under his feet. Meanwhile, the previous 'U.F.O.' alert had been replaced by a full on 'hostile ships' alert.
What the hell was going on out there?
A few moment later, the door to the safe-room opened, a large group of people waiting on the other side. It seemed that the active alert really had kicked the securing of all non-essential personnel into high-gear.
James stood back and watched quietly as people flooded in, taking passive notice of the people themselves. Medical personnel and people from med-enge took up a large portion of them, and they all walked in a practiced and orderly fashion. Drills for this sort of situation were not an uncommon thing on board of a military ship like this, so even though this was under much more serious conditions, the endless repetition of what to do in such a situation kept people calm and 'in their roles' so to speak. After the first large group of people had passed the doors and moved to the far-side of the room, there was a second group still waiting outside, which now began the process of gradually pushing medical beds into the promised safety.
Luckily, the Sun's intensive care units weren't exactly filled to the brim at the time, meaning there were just three patients currently sick enough that they required their beds and some machinery to be brought along with them in this part of the ship.
James' very own former surgeon Dr. Schram was next to one of them, currently monitoring a dark-haired patient who, by the look of things, appeared to be recovering from the recent attaching of a prosthetic hand.
Another one appeared to be a nervous looking young mother, whose hair was sticky with sweat that also covered her entire face as she did her best to hide any nervousness while holding a tightly bundled-up newborn against her chest, gently bouncing it with on arm while tightly clutching the hand of an out-of-uniform soldier who James recognized from a few very brief meetings with the other.
And of course, the third one...
James rushed up to the bed, positioning himself next to Tuya who was currently helping the medical personnel push Nia into the room while a female doctor with long blonde but already graying hair seemingly monitored her patient with the medical devices that were still attached to James' unconscious sister.
“Is everything alright?” he asked nervously, doing his best to stay out of the way even though he really wanted to get right next to her.
“Your sister is stable, Lt. Aldwin,” the Doctor confirmed for him without delay. “Luckily, she started breathing on her own again a few hours ago, so the ventilator is simply a precaution now. If she continues to take to the treatment as she did, she should wake up in the near future.”
James released a shaky breath that was nonetheless filled with relief at the fact that Nia appeared to be in no mortal danger from needing to be moved.
Tuya gave James a brief, encouraging smile before pushing the bed onward together with some nurses, quickly making sure that their patients wouldn't take up too much of the safe-room's space.
Forming the anchor behind the hard-to-move beds, a last group comprised of soldiers finally entered the room as well. They were mostly ground-troops who, much like James, wouldn't be of much direct use in a confrontation between ships, meaning that they were instead stationed within the safe-rooms in order to guard those inside in case they would need protection for any reason after the worst possibly occurred.
However, in this case, a few not-quite-fit for duty figures were among them as well, some of them dragging themselves into the room with as much of a problem standing up with their own strength as James had.
Koko especially seemed to be entirely out of it and had to fully rely on Andrej to hold her upright as James' entire team was feeling the aftereffects of the previous night.
Well...almost James' entire team.
“Whe...” he said as he walked up to them, glancing over the group a couple of times to make sure he didn't miss anyone as a queasy feeling rose up in his stomach. “Where is Shida?”
Among all of the many, many humans that had entered the room together to find relative safety, there wasn't a myiat in sight.
“Where-?” James tried to ask again before the gaze of Athena suddenly hit him, her icy blue eyes boring into his.
“Went to the hangar,” she said, and although she was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol, the Captain's voice had a severity to it that James only knew from their past missions together. “She's got a job to do.”
In all honesty, she might as well have shot right through him with one of her rifles, as James stood there turning paler and paler as all blood rushed right out of his face.
They traveled around together so much and were usually so close to each other that it was quite easy to forget but...Shida wasn't like him. She wasn't some planet-side grunt; she was Lieutenant-Commander. Unlike him, she knew damn well how to fly a ship, and she was more than capable of holding her own in a space battle. Well, at least James had to assume so. It wasn't like he had ever seen her truly in action.
And, unlike the rest of the team, she couldn't have alcohol either, meaning as the only one of them, she was stone sober when the alarm blared.
His eyes twitched over to Koko for a moment. Usually, she'd be out there with her. Not only that, but as Commander, she would coordinate a large number of the ships out there. But now, she could barely stand. She could barely stand because she and James had decided to 'make the evening count'. And make it count they did. And now...she was completely down for the count.
“Whoa there!” one of the uniformed soldiers announced as James suddenly felt two strong arms reaching under his armpits, catching him and holding him in place. He hadn't even noticed himself tipping over. His legs had just lost their strength all of a sudden.
“This...can't be-” he mumbled but couldn't even get the whole sentence out as the world suddenly began spinning around him again. So far, the adrenaline as well as other chemicals both natural and not had done quite well at warding off the effects of his intoxication and had kept him going for a bit.
But now, all at once, he suddenly only felt how his stomach churned.
–
“Destruction of eleven enemy ships confirmed,” a middle-aged zodiatos trumpeted in jubilation, thrusting her trunk up into a y-shape as she lifted her head up so quickly that she almost reared up onto her hind legs for a moment. “The system's of one more are heavily damaged, leaving it incapacitated.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren closed his eyes for a moment. Unlike his inferior, he didn't cheer or even so much as smiled. With his eyes closed, he held his breath while slowly lifting his split trunk over his shoulder. Using its end that had half of it missing, he slowly glided along the scar on the right side of his body, following the ridge of bumpy, calloused skin all the way from his brow down to his back, until he could reach no further. Even after many years of having it, the sensation of injured flesh rubbing against injured flesh never felt quite right, and yet the feeling somehow grounded him. Kept him in the moment. Gave him a feeling of purpose.
“The human ship?” he then finally asked, using the sentence to release the breath that he had been holding in a slow and controlled manner. They must have been prepared for an attack. Their hyperspace generators had been ready for a jump. They likely prepared it long before the shots were fired.
“Made a very short jump,” the answer to his question came not even a second later from another one of his officers. “Reemerged immediately around a light-second away.”
A light-second jump? Maybe they weren't as prepared as he thought. They must've barely gotten the generators fired up enough for travel.
“Immediately fire more Orderguards in their direction,” he ordered. “We cannot allow them a clean shot with their weaponry.”
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied with eagerness. The young bull was a good bit smaller than Nahfmir-Durrehefren and nowhere near as well-built, however he certainly didn't lack in motivation as he used his terminal to fire at the newly re-positioned enemy. He had already given his other ships the order to fire in the direction of the other two human combatants, even as they remained too far away to actually be threatened by the Orderguards. A direct hit from one of their FTL-weapons would spell an almost certain end for one of his ships, so he had to make sure to keep obstacles between them at all times.
“Once those rounds are out, remove the remaining coluyvoree,” Nahfmir-Durrehefren then added onto his orders. His fellow coreworlders were by far the lower threat and could be taken out with conventional weaponry as long as the Orderguards provided cover for his own ships.
Hopefully, they would realize they were outmatched and would use this brief grace-period that he granted them to mount their escape. Killing them was a shame, truly, but he had his orders. And he would fulfill them to his last breath if he had to.
“Be smart and fall back,” he thought to himself as he looked at the pristine white ships that hadn't been turned into scrap yet. With eleven ships destroyed and one out of commission, the coluyvoree may have technically still outnumbered his own little attack fleet, but still, they had to realize they stood no chance. There was no need for them to die a senseless death here.
Although of course, they didn't know that. Surely their hearts burned with the same sense of duty as his did, as they simply had to assume that their home was under attack, and that they were the only ones who could yet defend it.
How much he wished that he could've told them otherwise.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren lowered his gaze slightly as his ears began to flap. As always, the slit splitting his right-ear in two caused some mild, pulling pain whenever it moved a bit too fast, but he was so used to it that he barely noticed. Still, it reminded him of how he had gotten it.
“Just like old times, old friend,” he quietly mumbled to himself, thinking of the good lives that would be tragically and senselessly lost.
“Travel-sized hyperspace-stretches detected!” one of his officers yelled out, pulling him out of his melancholic yet nostalgia filled thoughts.
“They are jumping again?” he wondered, looking up to the screen. Were they already dodging? Probably. They had seen how destructive these weapons could be. However, stretches -plural- implied the other ships were moving as well. They were too far away to be afraid of the incoming fire. Maybe a strategic repositioning?
“Keep up the fire on the Flagship's new position,” he ordered first to make sure his gunner wouldn't forget to keep their cover up. Then he turned his attention to the currently more strategically important targets. “Where have the cruisers moved? Are they closer?”
As he asked, his eyes already moved over to the screen before him to confirm their position for himself. However, as they fell upon it, they found that the readings they saw there were quite...confounding.
“Negative, Sir, none of the ships have moved from their position!” his officer shouted, all the while his eyes were treated to the sight of the indicators for large hyperspace-stretches rising and falling on his screen, jumping up and down like a frequency or...like a heartbeat. The activity was so large and constant that it was hard for the sensors to even pin down how many stretches were being generated and where they emerged. Space was stretched and pulled constantly like a deflated balloon in the hands of a toddler, not truly allowed to fully settle for even a moment as stretch after stretch tugged at its integrity.
Feeling his eyes widen, he exhaled slowly, and once again ran his permanently injured trunk over his scar.
“All ships! Fire a protective volley immediately!” he then ordered. He didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't going to take any chances with it. They were going to completely protect themselves while they figured it out. There was no way he was going to let himself be blindsided while he thought.
All gunner complied immediately, and soon enough the ship vibrated ever so slightly as it shot out the massive projectile that, along with its brethren, soon formed the protective bubble of destructive energy around his forces.
“Visuals?” he then asked, causing the officer to switch her attention to a different window on her terminal.
“Should be reaching us any second, Sir,” she then finally replied. “I'm putting it through to you.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren nodded and lifted his gaze. Viewed on a screen through the feed of a camera, void-sickness was luckily a much smaller problem, especially for someone as experienced as he was, as he looked upon the video-broadcast of the black, human ship hovering in space.
To say that he 'saw' the ship would've been an overstatement. It was so dark that any direct features were nigh impossible to make out. The only reason it was somewhat visible at all was that it blocked enough light to become perceivable as a dark shadow pushing itself through space.
Soon enough, the hazy energy around the Orderguards was already taking away his vision again as it built up, but not before he saw what had happened that had caused his sensors to become so overloaded with input.
Bright sparks came from the human ship, lighting up its dark shape against the empty space, briefly making its form appear in its full glory before turning dark again. First there was one, but it was almost immediately followed by another. Then another. Then two more. Five more. Ten more.
More and more sparks of light poured out of the ship up like shooting stars, lighting up the void for fractions of seconds at a time in a colorful spectacle that Nahfmir-Durrehefren could only truly compare to fireworks rapid-firing out of a pyrotechnics machine.
However, in reality, they could only be one thing...
“They're sending out fighters!” he announced loudly. It was unlikely that none of his officers had made the connection themselves yet, but it was important that he got everyone onto the same wavelength quickly. “Prepare ships for interception!”
They didn't have long. Luckily the Orderguards were protecting them, otherwise it may have already been too late.
“Shooting out their fighters through hyperspace...” he mumbled to himself once things were set into motion for his own ships to engage the incoming crafts, figuring that the flagship must've rapid-fire generated the small stretches for the fighters to inject into so they wouldn't be vulnerable as they emerged from their hangars and also so they would reach their targets of attack much, much faster. “Almost stupidly daring, but clever...very clever.”
However, thanks to some quick thinking, it would ultimately be pointless. Their targets were protected from them right now. And once the protective bubble fell, they would have to deal with his own fighters. And that was a fight that even the humans weren't going to win, even if the numbers were on their side.
It was still peculiar to see these new models of fighters as they emerged from his ship and into the view of his cameras. They were comparatively small and round, and in each direction an extremely long 'spike' stuck out of their hull, much longer than the ships themselves were. It really was a good thing that one didn't have to worry about aerodynamics in space, otherwise the design would've looked even more utterly foolish than it already appeared.
However, there was method to the madness, as their foes on the battlefield would soon find.
The fighters flew in a widespread formation, leaving a lot of room between each of them as they positioned themselves along the corners of the generated grid of cubes that space had been divided into by their computers. And once they had reached their place in the formation, the long 'spikes' began to show their purpose as their ends 'activated' and erupted in the Orderguards' hazy energy, forming a protective network of spheres around them just like the one that had just temporarily protected their mother ships – just on a much smaller and more manageable scale. The ship itself was then situated in a small, empty space in the middle between the spheres.
The spikes were made of a durable and very conductive alloy, specifically designed to withstand the extreme energy output on a small scale as the emerging spheres protected the ships, leaving them nigh-invulnerable to enemy fighters' attacks.
The humans may have been valiant warriors, but this was not a conflict they were going to win. “Keep pushing the fighters with more shots,” he ordered, knowing it would be bad if he gave the small fighter craft swarming around his ships the chance to freely use their numbers to their advantage too much. Luckily, the Orderguards' wide sphere of effectiveness was quite efficient when it came to pressuring small craft specifically, as they would have to divert whatever they were doing to get out of the way of the massive projectiles. If they were caught lacking, there was a good chance a whole group of them would even get inevitable caught in the path of one.
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied, the enthusiasm in his voice not wavering one bit. It seemed that he was eager to shoot a couple of the primates out of the sky.
The protective bubble of their fired projectiles now gradually dispersed as they flew too far apart for their spheres to still interlock with each other – leaving the stage open for the fighters to engage with each other.
Despite their reduced size, one of the zodiatos ships was easily thrice the size of a human vessel, even when not counting the enormous shield that surrounded them. This made the human ships a good bit faster and more maneuverable, however his own fighters had the advantage that they could comfortably pursue human ships in close combat as any contact with their shields would be utterly devastating for such small vessels and the chance of retaliation against the shield was absolutely minimal.
And then there was of course the supporting Orderguard fire from the larger ships – something that the humans had to worry about a lot more than the zodiatos with their own shields.
Soon enough, the barely visible human fighters pushed into the gaps between the drifting-apart spheres like shadows creeping under a door – however Nahfmir-Durrehefren's own loyal pilots were already awaiting them there.
In the corner of his eye, he also saw his ever-motivated gunner get a glint in his eyes as he realized just how splendid of a funnel the Orderguards had formed for the human ships, leaving many of them to fly in what may as well have been in single file, with a lot of momentum carrying them right in the direction of his cannons.
A dream shot for an artilleryman if Nahfmir-Durrehefren had ever seen one. And the young man was clearly not going to miss it.
As the ship shook ever so slightly as the youngster took the shot, Nahfmir-Durrehefren looked upon the visual broadcast of the engagement. Just how would the humans react to such a foe like they had never faced before? At the very least, he could respect that they were facing it head-on.
Some simple fire was exchanged as soon as the combatants 'laid eyes on' each other, and the result was expectedly one-sided. The human ships were forced to swivel and swerve in evasive maneuvers to avoid the shots while their own projectiles and explosives simply fizzled against the zodiatos' shields.
In his head, Nahfmir-Durrehefren remembered a very old saying that he had once been told while visiting a museum that told of combat.
“When given the choice between the axe and the shield, the wise warrior will always choose the shield.”
For a very long time in their modern world of spacial warfare, that choice had never existed, so everyone had run around looking to find the biggest and sharpest axe to beat the others out with it. But now the rules had changed.
And once again, the wise warriors had gone for the shield.
After their pilots had received the message of the incoming fire-support as well as its travel path along the grid, their formation burst apart and reformed in an even wider arch that ultimately resembled a slowly closing maw around the human fighters.
With the Orderguard on its way, the pilots began herding as many of their deathworld opponents into its path as possible while blocking their possible routes of escape with weapons' fire as well as their very own shields, forming a very hard to escape funnel-net to catch these flies in.
Meanwhile, many of their possible ways to back out were still blocked by the previous volley of Orderguards that gradually drifted out into space.
All his ships had to do now was to keep up their formation and fire at any humans trying to escape the trap and making themselves an easy target. The rest would be handled by the heavy weaponry. “Remember to keep a barrier between us and the larger ships,” he once again reminded his soldiers, still not eager to be on the receiving end of one of their shots.
Though still, his attention was mostly drawn to the human fighters. He was still curious how they would try to deal with this kind of opponent. After all, there would be a lot to learn from their reaction to facing an unknown force, even if their chances at victory were slim.
They must have realized by now that they were drawn into a trap. He was sure of it. They didn't seem like the kind to not notice it. But knowing one had walked into a trap only mattered if one knew how to escape it. Would they make a break for it? Maybe try to sacrifice some while letting a larger part escape?
“Show me your trunk, humans...” he mumbled silently as he observed.
And the humans indeed turned from their current course. Though, to his surprise, they didn't actually fly a curve at all. Instead, they seemed to shut off most of their engines for a moment, only using some front thrusters to turn themselves away from their current direction while still being carried onward by their own momentum.
Like that, they drifted along for a moment, turning in their motion to face their opposing fighters head on.
“A last stand?” Nahfmir-Durrehefren wondered quietly to himself, seeing just how much of their speed the human ships had sacrificed in that slow turn. Even if they still had some momentum, it would be a very close call for them to speed up enough to avoid the incoming Orderguard that they had to know was coming by now. And that wasn't even mentioning how open they were leaving themselves to fire from the zodiatos fighters with speed this low. Might they be throwing everything they had at their opponents in a last blaze of glory, consequences be damned?
Though, with an interested tilt of his head and a slight lift of his trunk, Nahfmir-Durrehefren realized after a brief moment that the humans' drifting wasn't quite as uncontrolled as he had figured, because once they had reached the angle that they seemingly desired and stopped their turning momentum, he noticed that the human fighter vessels were now drifting in rows of three, always two ships lining up behind one leading one closest to the outside barricade of his forces, and each ship in one row was just ever so slightly offset from the ones in front of it so that they didn't quite form a perfect line. Clearly there was method to it.
By now, the newly fired Orderguard heading right down the funnel was growing to a size that threatened this newly formed human formation, also slowly blocking the sight of it from Nahfmir-Durrehefren. By now, it was probably too late for them to get out of the way after they did whatever they were planning there. A blaze of glory it was...
In the corner of his eyes, there was a bit of movement catching his attention all of a sudden. On one of his other screens, the sensors were once again going wild.
“Hyperspace detected!” his officer yelled out as her head snapped up, her posture stiffening severely as he watched the same thing unfold as Nahfmir-Durrehefren himself witnessed. The detected signatures were incredibly different from the ones that typical, stable hyperspace meant for travel exuded.
They knew the humans possessed this technology, of course. Now, it was time to see how their axe would stack up against his shield.
“Have at thee...” he mumbled as the apes took their last stand.
His direct sight of the small ships was already taken away by the expanding sphere of energy heading towards their destruction at this point. However, he didn't need to see them to know what was happening right there.
Especially not as the rainbow-colored flashes shot out from their obscured position, just before the deadly sphere would make contact with the first of the fighters.
Oh, how he wondered if the shots were going to penetrate. So much so that he dared not look away, even as the bright flashing lights burned themselves into his eyes in a brief vision of infinity.
Of course, everything happened so incredibly, unthinkably fast that what truly occurred was only comprehensible after the fact, as everything moved faster than a thought could even be formed; as even a single firing of a synapse occurred almost indefinably slow in comparison to the action itself. Faster than thought. Faster than light. Faster than even the universe itself could react.
He saw the large explosion as enormous quantities of energy erupted outwards from the impact as shots indeed connected with the shields, but...something was wrong. His subconscious knew it long before any reasoned thought could be formed as the picture was burned into his eyes, but something. Was. Wrong.
There were more lines now. More lines than the ones that had shot outwards from the ships and the shots...the shots had come from the wrong direction.
He never got to satisfy his lust to know whether the shields could withstand a shot of those weapons, as far more than just one hammered into the backs of each individual ship, battering them down with an unloading of energy that was too much for pretty much anything to withstand on such a small scale. And as soon as the shields were burst apart, even more shots hammered the ships on the inside, obliterating them in fiery balls that were contained by the remaining, still-active shield generators for just a moment before those lost power as well and left the brightly glowing, super-heated remains to float in place as temporary miniature suns.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren's eyes shot around to the sensors. They had been flanked by a so far unseen regiment? Where did those ships come from? Another one of the surrounding 'funnels' must have been breached...
However, that wasn't the case. Because at all of the other opened corners and gaps of their dispersing temporary shields, it seemed like this exact phenomenon was occurring at the same time.
But if the other fronts were also only broken now, then where did those-
Suddenly, something zapped past his camera with a bright glow, leaving an afterglow in his eye. And then there was another. Then another. Then ten more. Soon enough, he had to avert his eyes as the screen stopped showing him the darkness of space with the occasional light. And it was instead filled with a brightly glowing web of lines. No...not lines. Stretches. Hyprspace-stretches – multiple dozens of them. All of them dispersing as soon as they appeared, only to be near immediately replaced by another one.
The entire void all around the zodiatos ship became light from the sparkling stretches, outshining even the system's nearby star. Meanwhile all of the sensors that could even remotely detect a stretch went absolutely haywire.
Was...was each of the fighters..?
One of the stretches then dispersed right in their view, leaving the black ship that emerged from it standing out in amazing contrast from the bright background with its near true-black color. The ship drifted there for less than the blink of an eye – only just long enough to fire off a single shot of its physics-defying weaponry – before it immediately disappeared in yet another flash of light.
A strong tremor suddenly shook the ship so heavily that the ground was momentarily pulled out from under Nahfmir-Durrehefren's feet. Reacting quickly, he managed to land back on all fours again, even if the sudden unwanted jump caused some jolting pain in his ankles as he landed. Some of his officers weren't so lucky and toppled over where they stood, grunting out in pain as their massive bodies hit the ground.
Grimacing against the pain and wrapping his trunk firmly around a nearby railing to anchor himself, Nahfmir-Durrehefren didn't need the ship's blaring alarms to tell him that they had suffered a hit. A brief glimpse at the diagnostics on his screen told him that their engines had been struck. The shot must've come from right behind them – from the inside of their ships' formation. They had...just flown past them...right through their formation...
The scene replayed before his inner eye. A hyperspace jump that was nowhere near far enough to justify using such an engine. A brief emergence to fire a shot. And then an immediate retreat back into hyperspace. Repeated, all around him, who knew how many times each second...
They could generated it that fast...and not for a moment did they appear so much as disoriented...
He was out of it for a moment, just staring wide-eyed. But then, he let go of the railing again, as his trunk found its way to his scare once more, grounding him. He let out a long exhale.
“Well, old friend,” he said to himself as he felt scar tissue rub along scar tissue, once again thinking back to the day that he had received this injury. “Guess things are going as planned after all...”
–
“12-12, A-D,” a message reached Shida's ear, causing it to slightly twitch as the voice talked right into it through the strapped-on headphones that wrapped around her head.
“I'm aware, thanks D-F,” she replied through the comm herself, having already noticed the ship as soon as she had emerged back in normal space.
The thing was huge and almost entirely obscured by whatever that weird, opaque stuff was that these things generated. As it noticed that she had emerged so closely to it, it seemed to see its best chance at getting her by accelerating to ramming-speed.
Shida pulled at her steering a bit, but it was no use. With that mass of undefined energy barreling towards her, she wouldn't have enough time to turn for a shot. Better cut her losses.
Pulling the break for a moment, she activated one of her forwards thrusters as she adjusted to the stated and predicted routes of her surrounding allies on the grid so she wouldn't accidentally intercept with any of them as she jumped away.
This caused her to drift sideways for a moment, which in turn caused the charging wall of energy to gain on her as she slowed down, while also allowing her a better view of it through her front window.
She turned her head to the side a bit and adjusted the goggles over her eyes slightly as the ball of hazy death headed right for her broadside, becoming exponentially larger to her eyes by the second. She delayed her jump a smidge just to look at it a moment longer. It was almost beautiful in a strange way. So strange, so...alien.
However, before she could get into serious trouble in case the pilot of that thing decided to actually pull the trigger instead of just rushing her, she hit the engines and jumped out of there.
It was like blinking. For half a heartbeat, everything outside of her windows went entirely black. Then, she was already in another place, still drifting sideways the same way she had done before the jump. Only now, the nose of her ship was pointed right at a target that way.
As she pulled the trigger, her brightly glittering shot flew right past one of those burning orbs that the enemy fighters were turning into whenever their destruction was contained by their own shields.
But unlike a real star, these miniature versions were by far not enough to make her shot curve and pull away from its target, meaning that it crashed right into the fighters' shield.
Those things were impressive. A direct hit with a relativity canon, and yet the fighter was still going. Those shields were tough as boars. Though...it seemed they could only pull that trick off one time before they hard to regenerate, as the rear shield burst apart with the hit of her weapon, dispersing the energy of the impact all around, leaving the ship wide open for another shot from this angle.
Still, if these things could tank a relativity shot, even if it was just a small one from an unkindness-class, there couldn't be much else that could get through those shields. Just what was that strange haze...?
“A-D-” another comm sounded into her ear, however she was already in the process of hitting the engines.
“I got it,” she said as she jumped again, quickly flashing out of the way of an incoming rocket.
As she reappeared in normal space, she could the explosion of the thing go off far in the distance within the corner of her vision, not even seconds away from actually hitting her ship had she not moved.
Say what you will, but these bastards were persistent...
2024.05.07 23:35 Lord_shadowstar Revamping D1 exotics for D2 everyday until final shape launches Day 6: Universal Remote
It is now day 6 and with today's exotic we are pointing a clicking. Enter stage left, The revamped Universal remote.
Universal remote
Kinetic special shotgun
Stats
Impact: 70
Range: 30
Stability: 41
Handling: 59
Reload: 70
Aim assist: 35
RPM: 80
Magazine: 5(Total ammo: 20)
Recoil: 60; Strong left ward angle
Intrinsic perk: universal remote: Long press reload to switch ammo types. Swap between lightweight disruption rounds(Overload), Shredder buckshot(Anti-barrier) and heavy slugs(unstoppable) with the light disruption round you move faster(5%) and you swap weapons faster(15%), shredder buckshot has double the amount of pellets(24) but lower damage,(deals about 60% of pellet damage), and has greater falloff(max range is 5 meters) and heavy slugs have higher damage (about 120% damage) and stagger but is concentrated to a single point
smooth-bore
Hand-laid stock
Exotic perk: Channel Surfer: Killing a major or mini bosses enemy or stunning champion causes the next time you reload to reload all shells at once. In addition swapping the ammo type grants a stacking buff to weapon damage, precision damage and range (stacks 3 times, last 15 seconds)(+15/25/30% damage increase)(+0.3/0.55/0.75 precision multiplier)(+0.75/1.25/1.5 meters range)
Dual-loader
Catalyst: Deeper pockets (+10 rounds to the reserve)
+15 range
So with this one I decided against making it a primary ammo weapon and instead gave it a strong effect to replace that. The Weapon acts as an universal anti champion weapon. Its second perk also allows it to quickly restore a magazine from its reserves. Its secondary effect is a combination of its old perk:s crowd control and its old signature perk which granted it range and precision damage when aiming down the sight. I can also be a right menace in the crucible as it is like the combination of a lightweight aggressive and slug in one.
submitted by Lord_shadowstar to DestinyTheGame [link] [comments]
Universal remote
Kinetic special shotgun
Stats
Impact: 70
Range: 30
Stability: 41
Handling: 59
Reload: 70
Aim assist: 35
RPM: 80
Magazine: 5(Total ammo: 20)
Recoil: 60; Strong left ward angle
Intrinsic perk: universal remote: Long press reload to switch ammo types. Swap between lightweight disruption rounds(Overload), Shredder buckshot(Anti-barrier) and heavy slugs(unstoppable) with the light disruption round you move faster(5%) and you swap weapons faster(15%), shredder buckshot has double the amount of pellets(24) but lower damage,(deals about 60% of pellet damage), and has greater falloff(max range is 5 meters) and heavy slugs have higher damage (about 120% damage) and stagger but is concentrated to a single point
smooth-bore
Hand-laid stock
Exotic perk: Channel Surfer: Killing a major or mini bosses enemy or stunning champion causes the next time you reload to reload all shells at once. In addition swapping the ammo type grants a stacking buff to weapon damage, precision damage and range (stacks 3 times, last 15 seconds)(+15/25/30% damage increase)(+0.3/0.55/0.75 precision multiplier)(+0.75/1.25/1.5 meters range)
Dual-loader
Catalyst: Deeper pockets (+10 rounds to the reserve)
+15 range
So with this one I decided against making it a primary ammo weapon and instead gave it a strong effect to replace that. The Weapon acts as an universal anti champion weapon. Its second perk also allows it to quickly restore a magazine from its reserves. Its secondary effect is a combination of its old perk:s crowd control and its old signature perk which granted it range and precision damage when aiming down the sight. I can also be a right menace in the crucible as it is like the combination of a lightweight aggressive and slug in one.
2024.05.07 23:32 canyonmoon Has anyone taken remote classes at a college or university to learn Polish?
I’ve been through all the apps but I’d love something more structured. I don’t want a one on one tutor, but looking for an actual class.
I can’t seem to find any through colleges or universities that are fully remote.
Has anyone done something like this before? I don’t need to gain a cert or anything at the end, just need more structured learning.
submitted by canyonmoon to learnpolish [link] [comments]
I can’t seem to find any through colleges or universities that are fully remote.
Has anyone done something like this before? I don’t need to gain a cert or anything at the end, just need more structured learning.
2024.05.07 23:23 pipted Trip report: Mid April, two weeks in Tokyo & Osaka with 8 and 11 year old kids
Here's a report from our two week family trip a couple of weeks ago. My girls are aged 8 and 11, and are into cute stuff and animals.
Day 0 (10th April):
submitted by pipted to JapanTravel [link] [comments]
Day 0 (10th April):
- Arrived at Narita terminal 1, 6:30pm. Glad we knew which train to catch and the timetable, as the direct line to Asakusa Station (Keisei Sky Access) only goes roughly every 35mins. Took 30 mins to queue for Pasmo Passports, and despite short queues elsewhere, we had to run for our 8:05pm train!
- Hotel: Mimaru Tokyo Asakusa Station, right next to the station exit. The Mimaru chain is great for kids. Great service, big rooms, lots of beds, a dining area and kitchenette. Asakusa is a lovely, fairly quiet place to be based, and has beautiful early morning walk options along the river and to Senso-ji if you're jetlagged.
- Senso-ji early before the crowds. Beautiful temples and gardens, with cherry blossoms a bonus; a great start to Japanese culture before Hello Kitty and Pokemon took over! Next we stumbled upon the huge 24 hour Don Quixote nearby. Great for necessities and souvenirs alike.
- Sunshine City mall was next as we didn't want too much walking after not much sleep. I didn't know there was a Sanrio cafe there - luckily we were able to walk straight in! The Pokemon centre and Sylvanian Families stores kept the kids happy for a long time.
- Back to the hotel for a rest / nap, then Nakamise Dori (stalls near Senso-ji) and Kura Sushi for dinner. We finished at an arcade which we returned to every night as it was the only thing that kept our kids awake and fighting off jetlag!
- Teamlabs Borderless booked for 10am. No queues and straight in at 9:50am. There were a few people in there already, but it only felt crowded an hour later. Truly beautiful, well loved by the whole family.
- Harajuku next for Takeshita street. It was raining, so we picked up two of the famous big clear umbrellas. Sadly these were too big for our suitcases and a hassle to carry around - I suggest you plan ahead and buy a small umbrella or poncho instead. (Tiny umbrellas are cute and cheap at Don Quijote.) Plenty of interesting sights and stores condensed into a small space on Takeshita street, but nothing that you can't see elsewhere in Tokyo, so can be skipped if you don't like crowds!
- Ometosando: my kids had heard good things about Kiddyland toy store, but they were too tired to even walk all the way to the top floor, so back to the hotel for an afternoon rest.
- Katsukitchi (Asakusa) for dinner - best katsu we've ever had, lovely service, really highly recommended. We went back three more times!
- Odaiba. Here's where the Navitime app failed: it didn't recognise the monorail to Odaiba. Google maps recognises it as just another train. It's just as easy to catch as a regular train too, but provides excellent views.
- Poo museum at DiverCity mall first. Hard to access because the mall opens an hour after the museum. We hadn't booked but were able to walk straight in. The poo museum is tiny and seems mostly set up for social media photos, but the kids had a lot of laughs.
- Sega Joyopolis: I'm glad we didn't pay for the full unlimited passes, as my kids didn't like most of the rides. Instead we paid for entry and just paid for a couple of rides.
- Takoyaki food court nearby – literally only sells takoyaki – even some of the drinks have octopus in them! Bit of a mistake as our kids don’t like octopus, haha.
- Ferry back to our hotel in Asakusa.
- Rickshaw tour of Asakusa in the evening – expensive but a highlight for the kids.
- Kappabashi Street to shop for knives and book a workshop for Ganso Shokuhin Sample-Ya (see day 10).
- Samurai Ninja Museum: not in the itinerary, just saw it walking past. The kids didn't want to dress up and didn't find the tour very interesting, but my husband and I learned a lot.
- Skytree mall: bigger than expected; spent most of the day between the shops and aquarium. Sumida Aquarium is small but beautiful.
- Skytree is worth a visit, but there's not much to do up there and it's very crowded. I've heard the upper floor is less crowded, but it was booked out when I booked online a few weeks before. On the day they were selling walk up tickets including the upper floor, but it wasn't possible to upgrade our ticket, unfortunately.
- Travel from Tokyo to Osaka. Booked with Smartex a few days before using my Mastercard, then linked to our IC cards. We couldn’t figure out how to pick up tickets at first, but it was easy: Scan IC cards at the Shinkansen gate and a ticket will print out with your booked details. We sent our luggage by takkyubin the day before, but needn't have bothered as there was ample room for luggage in the Green Car.
- Hotel: Mimaru Osaka Namba Station: a game-themed hotel (board games, card games etc) with games to borrow and many integrated into the hotel itself. Fabulous. Our Japanese room had a tatami floor, with two regular beds and three comfortable futons. My only complaint was that we had been spoiled in Asakusa being next to the station and in a quieter place; Namba station was an eight-minute walk through a bustling district (with an Akihabara feel to it; lots of gaming and anime and technology), which didn't suit our family quite as well when returning from a tiring day.
- Dotonbori: the big signs were cool, but it's not that impressive by day. Rode the weird Don Quijote ferris wheel - surprisingly high, my kids found it quite scary!
- Teamlabs Botanical Gardens: also highly recommended! The kids loved the freedom to race around and interact with the glowing artworks.
- Harvest Hill first, to visit the Sylvanian Families village. My girls adore these cute Japanese animal dolls, and visiting their life-sized houses was a dream come true. Harvest Hill also has animals, boats, flowers, small rides and beautiful scenery. We couldn't find the bus from the nearest train station, but taxis were easy, and the bus back to the station was easy to find as it was a remote area with just one bus stop! Just tag on and off with your IC card.
- Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. We had high expectations as it's ranked at number six in the world, and it blew even those expectations out of the water! Incredible.
- Tempozan Ferris Wheel: long queue for people wanting a glass floor; we didn’t, so we skipped the queue and walked straight on. Amazing views to Universal Studios!
- Picked up takeaway pizzas from [A] Pizza as the kids were tired.
- Universal Studios Japan. Arrived at 8:10am. I'd read that it opens at 8, but not today! We had early entry tickets, but all queues were let in at around 8:40. The benefit of the early entry ticket is that the queue is MUCH shorter. We also paid for the 7 ride express pass: expensive but worth it as we could do all the best rides in one day with almost no queues. Truly magical for our young fans of Harry Potter, Super Mario and Minions.
- Nara: Still tired from Universal Studios, and the temples are spread far apart, so we stuck to the deer feeding near the station. We'd read the warnings, but inevitably, my eight-year-old got spooked and ran. Before we could help her, she'd been bitten hard on the back. After one more (carefully controlled) attempt, we headed back to the hotel.
- Osaka castle: The kids wanted to relax and play arcade games, so I headed out alone. Beautiful castle and grounds, worth a visit even with kids (there's a playground in the southwestern corner of the park with a view of the castle). Long queue to catch the elevator, but no queue for those happy to walk up. Every floor has museum displays, so you can rest on every floor if you're tired!
- I'm not much into social media, but on the way out through the park I tried one of the 'viral' ten yen cheese breads - yuck, why was it sweet?! Some things look great online but that doesn’t match reality, haha.
- Kyoto day trip. We planned just two stops that were easily accessible by train.
- Fushimi Inari Taisha first, because my kids love foxes. Lots of fox shrines (and souvenirs!) The red torii gates were crowded as expected, so we took a side path to the right a short way up the hill. This took us through the forest, past more shrines, with almost no people! It took us 50 minutes to reach the peak.
- Gion, up the Ninenzaka path. It was crowded and the kids were tired, so we didn't stay long! We'll do Kyoto properly when the kids are older.
- Travel to Tokyo. A week earlier I had accidentally booked today's Shinkansen in the wrong direction, but luckily the refund process with Smartex is easy and cheap! We found a huge discount (30% off green car) called Hayatoku 3 Family, available for groups of 2 or more on weekends on the Nozomi train when booked at least 3 days in advance.
- Ganso Shokuhin Sample-Ya, Kappabashi street: Sample food making workshop. Very highly recommended! The staff at the counter don’t speak much English, but the teachers do. Our teacher Koyama was really lovely and the whole experience was delightful.
- Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay: our hotel for Disney. It's the most convenient of all the unofficial Disney hotels, being across the road from the station, and had several restaurants, stores and an indoor pool. Half the rooms have views of the Disney fireworks - sadly not ours! But they can be seen from the lobby. Don’t expect regular Japan prices though – everything is expensive!
- Disneysea, Disneyland, then Disneysea. A dream seeing my kids enjoying everything. Get as many fast passes as you can, and you could do the entire park (or at least everything you want to do) in one day per park. We were glad to have a third day so our first day wasn’t stressful, but we didn’t really need it.
- My other tip is to perhaps send one adult, and perhaps a braver kid, on the rides which may be scary first. Our eight-year-old was so spooked by our first ride (Tower of Terror) that she refused to try anything scary again, so the eleven-year-old checked all the scary rides while her little sister rode the cute ones!
- Dining in the Disney parks is overpriced and not great; dining in Sheraton is also expensive but better quality. By the third night we ended up in the American restaurants at Ikspiari mall nearby.
- Ikspiari Mall shopping, then limousine bus (booked at hotel reception) to Narita. I realised by this point that we still had a lot of credit on our non-refundable IC cards. We used a little at the airport, but we should have planned it better!
2024.05.07 23:10 afrothang 2019 FXBB wheel swap experiences and questions
Swapping spokes for mags on my 2019 FXBB. Using TMF conversion kit (FXBB to sportster 13spoke kit) and 2018 Sportster 9 spoke wheels (supposedly off an Iron 1200 with full black mags/not the one with Raw accents).
I was told by TMF that the kit also works for 9 spoke wheels, and i took that as it was universal for both 13 and 9 spoke wheels.
However, upon initial fitment of the front wheel, 1) the caliper spacers were not enough to center the caliper on rotor, and 2) if the calipers were fit to the rotors as is, the calipers do not clear the spokes of the wheel. Short story is the oem rotor setup of the 2018 sportster wheel is too close to the wheel for the 2019 FXBB calipers, and the TMF kit caliber spacers are not enough to reach the rotor.
My main question is, can anyone who has done this setup confirm this issue and that i am not doing anything wrong? Just wanted some real life experiences before i dig myself into the wrong hole.
Seems like i need 1)a rotor spacer to push the rotor away from the spokes for brake clearance, and 2)additional caliper spacers to push calipers towards the rotor...
Total gap is 12.75mm. Exisiting caliper spacer is 7.18mm wide. I need roughly 5.5mm spacer on the rotor side to meet the caliper with spacer, or the entire 12.75mm rotor spacer to forgoe the caliper spacer entirely.
I have yet to find rotor spacers even remotely that thick, just a bunch of thin ones specific to early 80-90's model harleys. 1) is it ok to use multiple layers of thinner rotor spacers? 2) are harley davidson rotor bolt patterns the same throughout the years and models? Can i use these older rotor spacers on a 2018 sportster wheel?
If anyone has leads to where i can get rotor spacers online (and possibly take returns if they dont work) that would be greatly appreciated.
submitted by afrothang to Harley [link] [comments]
I was told by TMF that the kit also works for 9 spoke wheels, and i took that as it was universal for both 13 and 9 spoke wheels.
However, upon initial fitment of the front wheel, 1) the caliper spacers were not enough to center the caliper on rotor, and 2) if the calipers were fit to the rotors as is, the calipers do not clear the spokes of the wheel. Short story is the oem rotor setup of the 2018 sportster wheel is too close to the wheel for the 2019 FXBB calipers, and the TMF kit caliber spacers are not enough to reach the rotor.
My main question is, can anyone who has done this setup confirm this issue and that i am not doing anything wrong? Just wanted some real life experiences before i dig myself into the wrong hole.
Seems like i need 1)a rotor spacer to push the rotor away from the spokes for brake clearance, and 2)additional caliper spacers to push calipers towards the rotor...
Total gap is 12.75mm. Exisiting caliper spacer is 7.18mm wide. I need roughly 5.5mm spacer on the rotor side to meet the caliper with spacer, or the entire 12.75mm rotor spacer to forgoe the caliper spacer entirely.
I have yet to find rotor spacers even remotely that thick, just a bunch of thin ones specific to early 80-90's model harleys. 1) is it ok to use multiple layers of thinner rotor spacers? 2) are harley davidson rotor bolt patterns the same throughout the years and models? Can i use these older rotor spacers on a 2018 sportster wheel?
If anyone has leads to where i can get rotor spacers online (and possibly take returns if they dont work) that would be greatly appreciated.
2024.05.07 22:51 Mighty_L_LORT Dream job post
 | submitted by Mighty_L_LORT to antiwork [link] [comments] |