Today’s prompt and DeviantArt link. This one is also a sequel of sorts to “Bait“.

I continued to pilot the Gemini over the treetops flying in at times a figure-eightish, other times an infinity loop, and even some of the other times a Mobius trip pattern, After a couple of close calls with troll projectiles, Banana suggested keeping our flight patterns high enough to avoid most contact, while still fling low enough to keep the trolls focused on us.

The other Gemini flew in a large halo-like circle covering the entire area in which we were attempting our CSAR. I heard various calls over the radio but I succeeded in tuning out every voice that wasn’t Banana. I knew if something was important, she’d speak up. Otherwise, I ignored all but her and the trolls below.

When she called out,  “package received, both Artys away”, I made a deliberate quick turn back around heading directly towards one of the largest groups of trolls on the ground.  I fired the Gemini’s close combat lasers at them and follow that with a close buzzing of the aerospace fighter before lifting up and over the treetops providing close air support for the Artemis drop ships on their way out of the hot zone.

Yesterday’s prompt and DeviantArt link.

The first encounter with other humans caught us by surprise. We had several aerospace fighters running recon flights over the land masses on the “other side” of the world. As they relayed back a fight they were witnessing, the decision was made to combine a first contact with a military assist, and one of our ground force teams was dispatched by drop ship.

We all watched in awe as they joined the battle. There was a large group of “knights” in shinny armor with a variety of symbols on the cloth tabards worn over the heavy armor. These knights seemed to be arranged into three groupings. The first group that our troops encountered was a small distance from the lines of combat and was set about calling out prayers and chants which would seem to cause a golden light to surround various other knights and cause any injuries to vanish or in some cases the knights touched by the light grew stronger.

The second group was gathered in smaller groups battling what appeared to be demons and ghouls for lack of a better description. I watched without blinking as one knight stood his ground and began a wide swing of a massive sword that cleaved through several of his opponents at once. As the swing came around, we had our first glimpse of the third grouping of knights.

This third group seemed to be wadding into the thickest parts of the battle and using their smaller swords and large shields to gather up large groups of opponents for the other group of knights to attack. Similar to the first group, they would occasionally offer up a prayer or chant that would result in a large sphere of golden light to reach out about a yard from where they stood and cause everything in that sphere that wasn’t a knight to explode.

A couple of our communications technicians and one of the archival scientists swore the knights were speaking an older form of French. The best guesses our ground troops could get were something about paladins and one of them heard one of the knights from the first grouping to use the term Templar as an offered description.

Here’s Tuesday’s prompt and DeviantArt link.

The elves approached our forward operating base before we ventured out into the local area. We were still getting the basic structures set up when two elves came within guard sight range of the base.

We all stopped working and took the opportunity to get our first look at “aliens”. Granted we were actually the aliens here. What we saw was a pair of tall, abnormally thin humanoids, with ears ending in points, faces displaying small amounts of facial hair, and clothing that would easily be seen among the more native tribes of Earth. They looked frail to be honest and didn’t appear to be a threat.

The general and some of his security met the elves halfway between the guard mounts of our base and the treeline from which the elves approached. The general brought the two with him and quickly traveled to the command post. As the guards came back, the used terms such as elves and noted similarities to Celtic imagery combining wood and leathers with stone and metal.

A little behind because of playoff games and cleaning for an apartment inspection, but catching up. Here’s Mondays prompt and DeviantArt link.

The first recon flights by the Gemini aerospace fighters brought back word of seeing castles and villages occupying most of the country side instead of the cities and towns that were the norm back home. The pilots and weapon system operators (wisos) who had been to Germany and other parts of Europe described a similarity to what they seen before, while also being different.

When pressed, those crewmembers said the architecture was different. There described some that share commonalities with castles from France, but most others made more of an effort to blend into the natural surroundings. For example, on two of the largest land masses, there were castle walls and doors blending into mountain sides; while on some of the lesser sized land masses, castles were blending into the local forests when they weren’t built as “treehouses”.

As we encountered the local dwarves and elves, and heard of before encountering the trolls, we learned about most of the occupants of this side of what was now being called Themis. The more familiar castles were mostly on a couple of large land masses on the opposite side of the world from these land masses. None of those we encountered on this side knew anything about who might be on the other side. Yet, not many of these mythological people we encountered here seemed as surprised to see a human “for the first time” as we did seeing our first nonhuman peoples.

Today’s prompt and DeviantArt link.

When humanity moved away from the restrictive environment of Earth to the even more restrictive environments of space stations, space ships, and other planetary based colonies, it was inevitable that humanity’s attachment to their four-legged best friends would force U.S. Space Command (USSC) to come up with a plan to introduce dogs into space. Most USSC scientists were reluctant to transport dogs into space over long-held guilt over Laika’s fate many centuries before.

In fact, the fate of Laika was long thought to be the reason dogs rarely made an appearance in scifi stories other than those of the post-apocalyptic variety until a pair a scifi authors at the beginning of the 21st century ended one of their novels with the appearance of a dog on a space ship. The dog’s appearance on that fictional space ship was inevitably to serve as the inspiration for 23rd century dog lovers to demand the appearance of dogs on space ships in the new science reality.

The first issue with dogs on space ships was the suitability of a dog to survive and thrive in the constantly shifting temperature environments. Two dogs offering the most promise for dogs in the cool and sterile environments of space ships, space station, and enclosed colony structures were the husky and the malamute. Other dogs were tried, but some such as the German Shepard and the Labrador retriever ran into problems of their boredom and curiosity leading to damage to structures that would result in atmospheric leaks before resulting catastrophic failures.

After the problem of which dogs to put on space ships, the USSC’s next problem was how to get the dog onto the ship and how to protect them once there when things like holes from punctures caused things on the inside of the ship to squeeze to the outside of the ship. It took some attempts, but scientists eventually worked up a space suit the dogs would wear and a helmet that allowed for dogs to still smell and hear through strategically placed sensors. The helmet was also designed to allow the dog’s normal need to have their tongue hanging out.