Ashes Snippet 3

 So, I managed to render 10 seconds of the video last night, and 2 today at breakfast and another 2 at lunch. This is going to be a long term render project.

Anyway, Firefox is acting up so let's see if I can get the snippet out:

Necrons

 

Cast:

Necron Bishop Hemdale

Jimmy Faldron: Convert

 

Founders:

Doctor Victor “Doctor Death” Mengelov: Necron leader.

Doctor Nesset: Necron second-in-command.

Doctor Shio Ishi: Necron third-in-command.

Doctor Dollmaker

Doctor Hugo Strange

Doctor Cadmus Peverell: Deathly hallow loved a woman who died, tried to bring her back, suicide.

 

Scottsdale IV, Epsilon Sector

 

Bishop Hemdale walked with a slow pace through the black halls. He had no idea why the Necrons preferred Gothic architecture. He didn't understand a lot of things about his adopted people. He didn't need to.

He was dressed in flowing robes of blood red and black. A matching mitre was on his head. Gold was woven into his outfit. The gold was a circuit design that interfaced with his cybernetic implants. The robes and mitre were to cover any blood he encountered. The mitre also covered the fact that his skull had been opened up, and he now had metal and plastic components along with a clear glass shell.

He didn't care for looks. He had risen through the Scottsdale chapter ranks to get where he was. He, unlike some of their number, actually appreciated his new form and newfound power.

Before, he had been a poor, down-on-his-luck immigrant on the streets of the colony. He'd come with such high hopes, trained in a variety of skills from construction to trauma medicine. He'd been dismayed that housing had been so crushingly expensive.

Since he had been new, he hadn't had an address. He, therefore, was classed as transitory. He'd tried to stay at a motel and had burned through what little cash he had rather quickly. He'd made mistakes.

When he'd been kicked out, he'd found it even harder to find a job. No one would hire him since he had no roots or a place to check on him. It had been hard to see interviewers give a fake customer service smile and pass him by.

Without money he had been stuck on the streets. At night he had been oppressed by the local law, driven into the shadows and away from the public eye. The public citizens and tourists didn't like the homeless population.

He'd worked whatever day laborer job he could find to get income with the intent of clawing his way back into the good graces of society. He had never been able to save anything though and had been robbed more than once. Several times he'd worked for someone and gone above and beyond to do the job … only to be stiffed in the end and laughed at. He hadn't been able to call the police for help, and they knew it and had taken advantage of him. He'd tried his hand at panhandling too when he was desperate and had endured beatings because of it.

He had become desperate and depressed and had fallen into the usual sewer of drug use and alcohol to cope. That had started him on a fast downward spiral. He'd even sold his body for sex a few times just to get his next fix when the addiction had kicked in and the cravings had gotten bad.

The Necrons had found him, half alive. He'd all but given up on life. They had shown him a new path. Cybernetic implants changed the cravings to one of power and of pleasure from direct neural stimulation of his pleasure centers.

He had risen through the ranks, showing a willingness that others lacked. He had even met a clone of Doctor Dollmaker and had been ordained into the Necron priesthood, their medics.

The clone had been one of several who had been making the rounds apparently. But he spoke with the master's voice.

He touched the Lazarus mind through his implants, caressing its sleeping mind and then went back to his walk.

His body was hunched over; he had implants on his back along with additional grafted on limbs. His legs had been replaced long ago. His flesh was weak with age and with rejection of the implants, but his spirit was alive with a fire and zeal few in their ranks had.

Which was why he was in charge, and they knew it.

<<<*>>>

Jimmy muttered, head bouncing around as he gibbered. He was in the throws of a bad trip he thought over and over again. The things that carried him were a nightmare.

His body was partially paralyzed from whatever spider thing had found him. He'd been asleep in the flood canal and now they were carrying him … somewhere. It was hard to think.

He started to gibber and someone in black and red touched him gently. He saw a needle come out of a hand and claw-like fingers stroke his flesh before the needle was plunged in.

Bliss overtook him within seconds, and he groaned greedily, happy once more.

<<<*>>>

Ashes Snippet 2

 Sitrep: So far not much headway on the animation, I'm waiting on feedback.

In other news I've made some minor progress with Searching for a Needle, and The Long Road Home.

   Searching for a Needle is book 1 of Pirate Hunt, the next Irons series. I'm in the blocking phase now. It will be in parallel to Diplomacy, Parabellum, The Pi Effect, and the Long Road Home. (It is the anchor line in other words)

  The Long Road Home is the next much anticipated Jethro Goes to War book. I had intended to write it first but I only had enough material for a very short (Very very short) short story... up until this morning. Pieces started to fall into place and I rolled out of bed and did some blocking. Hopefully it makes sense to my now caffeine invigorated brain. :)

 I am also debating on moving Academy to the short story anthology books. I had it blocked out years ago but never got around to writing it. You can see pieces of it in a few books. I threw people out there but then never got around to filling them in after that. Academy getting shelved is why. (that and I forgot them)

Anyway, on to the snippet!

  Whelp, I nearly had a heart attack! I went to grab the snippet and found out I'd put it in the wrong folder... and moved the file there. I thought I'd accidentally deleted Horatio 4! Whew! Glad I've got backups! That could have been messy!

Titan

 

Cast:

Captain SG Unicron: A.I. of Unicron. Ship A.I. As senior ranking officer acting captain after captain and flag officers killed in battle.

Commander Ozzie Bankole: Male Neogorilla. XO of the ship. Former TO of Battle Planet Colussus. Family man as a silverback with his own troop.

Commander Tornedron: A.I. Male. Resents being passed over for promotion and relegated to being under the thumb of organics. TO of the ship.

Lieutenant Commander Maev Hannibal: Chief engineer.

Governor Carrie Urban

Arblus: Technician on Lithone.

Lieutenant Kranix: A.I. Army. Retired to Lithone.

 

In hyperpace, Epsilon Sector

 

Lieutenant Commander Maev Hannibal, acting chief engineer stared at the inventory. It was better known for what was missing than what was left.

She was normally a glass half full sort of lady. Get her part of the way through a problem and she would take it the rest of the way. Engineers were problem solvers; they loved to get the job done and make a “miracle.” She had a motto etched on a plaque. “The difficult is done at once. The impossible takes a little longer.” She loved it and taught it to her crew. They had a reputation after all.

But damn. The war was grinding them down. Loosing half of their department hadn't helped.

She looked at the list again. The battle damage had been extensive. They had lost Unicron's internal yard, her nay, his small craft production center, the various subassembly lines, and a good chunk of their stores. Most of their magazines had been shot dry.

In other words, they were in a shot-up battle planet that had only his energy weapons left and not much industrial capacity at all. Oh, their molecular furnaces worked but so what? She shook her head in annoyance.

She looked down the list with the red lines. Nothing really jumped out at her. She finally grimaced and shook her head. “Okay let's take this from another view. What do we have left?” she asked. She had damage control parties still sorting out the wreckage. They were supposed to set aside anything that might be repairable. So far that list was depressingly small. Somehow she had to rebuild the ship with what?

Her eyes scanned down the list. She had about twenty industrial replicators left, all class 2. None were larger than three cubic meters. That sort of build volume sharply limited her options. And then there was the other big problem, the lack of keys.

She made a puttering sound and then dug into the list to see what she could do with what she had left. Some progress was better than none she reminded herself.

~@~

Commander Ozzie Bankole snorted, large nostrils dilating for a brief moment before he gave in and rubbed against the corner. No one was around, and even if they were, he didn't give a shit at the moment. Whoever thought it was a good idea to give primates the same nudity taboo as humans should have been given itching powder in every damn outfit they ever wore.

The corner wasn't quite sharp enough to get the itch completely, but it did give his back a warm friction burn after a few minutes. “Are you quite finished marking your territory, Commander?” a familiar bass voice asked.

“Just about. I hate having an itch I can't scratch,” The Neogorilla growled. He rolled his shoulders. “Can I help you, Captain?” he asked as he adjusted his uniform.

He was still feeling out his relationship with Captain Senior Grade Unicron. Unicron was the acting captain as he was the acting XO. He'd come off of Colussus so he had experience handling a ship so large. What he didn't have experience with was having an A.I. for a boss and being essentially screwed, blued, and tattooed as his father used to pithily say.

“There are some problems with some of the passengers. They also keep thinking I'm some dumb waiter. Remind them of their status,” the A.I. growled. The Neogorilla hid a grimace but nodded dutifully. “I also called for a senior staff meeting this evening.”

“Yes, sir. Can I ask what about?”

“What else?” the A.I. asked. “The repair status. We're not making much progress, and I expect that to change right away or heads will roll.”

“Yes, sir. I'll pass that along.”

“You do that, Commander,” the A.I. said tartly and then the voice clicked.

The Neogorilla knew better than to say something about his boss. The A.I. was watching at all times even if he seemed to be busy doing other things.

He shook his head as he pulled up a list of passengers. It would have been helpful if the captain had told him who specifically was treating him like a bot but apparently not. He checked the culprits he did know about. Most were settling down so he decided to have a chat with them.

As he wrote a list and then began to ping their locations in the ship, he plotted a route to hit each and a few stops along the way. The ship was the size of a planet; there was no way any officer could do a walkabout in her in their lifetime. Officers had to trust the equipment and their people.

Trust but verify Ozzie his errant mind thought before he brushed the thought away in irritation.

Once he had a map, he started in on it as he checked in with the status of the various departments. There were constant complaints from tactical, no surprise there. All they had left were their shields and energy weapons. Half of their energy weapons he reminded himself.

“Maev,” he said, calling the chief.

“Yes, Commander?” a familiar voice asked tiredly. Her image appeared in a window on his HUD a moment later. She was apparently near a camera since it was a live feed. “I am assuming you are looking for a status report for our lord and master?” she asked flippantly.

He scowled. “Maev,” he said in a darker tone of voice.

“Sorry. Tired. What gives?”

“As it happens, yes, I was asked to look into things. We have a senior officer meeting this evening.” He realized the captain hadn't given him a time. Rather than ping him he decided to shoot from the hip. “Seventeen hundred. Understood?”

“Sure.”

“In person.”

She grimaced but then nodded. “I'll be there. Where are you off to?”

“I need to remind some of the passengers to behave again.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Don't we have people for that? And shouldn't you just call them?”

“Sometimes it's best to make the proper impression in person,” he said gruffly.

She nodded.

“But you are right. We need a purser or quartermaster. Candidates?” he asked.

“A bean counter would be good. I don't have any off the top of my head. Definitely none I can spare. I do have …,” she frowned. “I know some of the departments didn't get too badly chewed up when we lost most of our stores. There might be one or two people left.”

“I'll look into it.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Where are we with repairs?”

“Trying to make bricks without straw tends to be an impossible task. We're making headway, but it's not much. Probably why we're going to get chewed out.”

He grimaced as he got into a lift. “Possibly. Any way to accelerate repairs?”

“Not without a yard or at least a mobile shipyard or tender. Or a couple dozen of them but they seem to be in short supply at the moment,” she said dryly. “I've got a couple of class 2 industrial replicators, and that's about it. Which, given the list of repairs,” she waved a tablet, “is like trying to bail an ocean with a teaspoon.”

“Well, every little bit helps. Keep on it. Think outside the box.”

“I am. We lost a lot of supplies. The scrap will only get us so far. We need to stop somewhere that has supplies and restock.”

“Ah. I'll pass that on or you can bring it up at the meeting. Out.”

“Out,” she said as the signal disconnected.

~@~

Ashes Snippet 1

   So, I got wrapped up in the Youtube video project so much that I forgot to post snippets. My bad. Oops?

It is rather difficult to post snippets from the short story anthology books. But we'll give it the usual try. :)

First up, I have another series of screengrabs for the video project.

  Still working on lighting and pacing. The second test video is done, I'm going to shoot it to Mechmaster to see what he thinks of it.

  The first and second test was interesting. I am rendering it frame by frame and then putting the frames together in a sequence in an open source video editor called Shotcut. It is cool but tricky to figure out. (I just figured out how to set the frame rate last night)

  It is an interesting project. Once I get the all clear I'll render it frame by frame when I'm AFK. (most likely in the evenings. It will most likely take a month or 2 to complete, and then I need to figure out the rest of it.) 

   No, I'm not rendering it at night while sleeping. My PC is an 8 core liquid cooled monster that sounds like a jet engine (7 fans) when it is revved up to 100%) It is 3 feet from my head in bed. Pass.

  I haven't done animation in a long time. I think I did a few things for the Wandering Engineer universe but I never rendered them. Maybe If I get a good response from this I'll do something about that someday.

Anyway, on to the snippet!

The following is from the story: An Act of Inspiration or Madness. I wrote the initial treatment and a lot of the story years ago. I tucked the story away until now.

Good Faith, Delta Sector Capital

 

Governor Renee Monet looked at the protest signs and then the law enforcement on the other side protecting the status quo. There were a lot more droids and a lot fewer organic men and women than he'd like in that line—not that he had a choice. The Police Union had kicked up a fuss about the lack of funds.

He couldn't help that they were in a depression. Everyone was in a depression since Sol had been destroyed and the ansible network had gone offline. All electronic commerce, banking, and information had died instantly. It sucked. But they still needed to survive. To do that they needed law and order.

Which was why the government was pushing the courts to keep the law enforcement people on the front lines even though they lacked the funds to pay them. He was certain they'd figure it out eventually.

As a core world sector capital, Good Faith had a population of over three billion souls. Most of that number was on the planet of course, but a sizable percentage were on habitats scattered around the star system. They worked or supported those who worked in the space industry around the star system.

His eyes narrowed as someone threw a rotten egg. It splattered on an android's plastic shield and dribbled down. It didn't matter.

As the sector capital, they had a small fleet of naval vessels defending them. They'd invested in a planetary defense network and class II shield. He had agitated to get more defenses around the star, which the admiral had complied with to the best of his limited ability.

And still it wasn't enough. They all knew it.

He shivered and turned away from the screen. Despite their massive population and industrial infrastructure, all he could see was them as a target.

The Xenos were hammering other star systems with the same system, using their version of the nova bomb when they ran into stiff defenses. It only took one ship to get through to end it all.

His fists clenched and unclenched.

They had to find a way out of the trap they were stuck in. They just had to.

Soon.

~~~O~~~

Rear Admiral Tag Lane looked at the icons on the plot. Some might take some semblance of satisfaction in the number and designations; he did not. He knew his boss Vice Admiral Blacklip wasn't happy either. What admiral worth his or her salt was ever happy with what they had? They always wanted that little bit more. That cushion. They never thought they had enough to do a job, or at least were never willing to admit it.

This time it was true. They had too many missions in one place.

The first was obvious—stop the enemy from doing any damage to the star system. Second, stop any nanotech they shot at anything including the planet; third, intercept any attempt to use a nova bomb to end it all.

Easier said than done when you had so much real estate to cover and only so many ships and fortifications to do it with he thought sourly.

Fleet 30, Task Force Delta, was limited to four hundred ships. Four hundred ships left behind—most too old, too slow, or under construction at the time of the Federation core world's call to arms. All of the other ships in the sector had rushed to Alpha and Beta sectors and were most likely dust or radioactive debris. None had returned. Not one and that bothered him.

His son had been on one of those ships.

They had been forced to abandon the largest yard in the sector, Bixbee, when the enemy had come in. According to the reports, they had read the enemy fleet was some sort of automated juggernaut. He could believe that last bit.

His bleak eyes turned to the star map.

There were small forts around the star; one on each Z axis and one on each Y and X axis. Shoals of Orbital Weapon Platforms were around them. Satellites connected them together. They covered the star and the solar tap and plasma extraction facility in orbit of the star. Nearby were the glittering solar farms.

Out beyond them were the occasional civilian Aten asteroid mining outfit. Then the planet and all of its orbital resources. There were twelve small forts there and dozens of OWPs and other structures there. The two moons were covered in colonies and mining facilities. There were several industrial centers at the Lagraine points including the navy's one and only remaining repair slip in the area.

The repair slip was a cruiser grade facility. That was great for anything cruiser size but not for the few capital ships they had in the fleet. Commander Shumaker, the CO of the facility, wasn't shy about complaining about that fact.

Beyond that were the dense asteroid field and the corporate mining outfits there. There were a trio of dwarf planets that had been converted into habitats for some of the population there. Then beyond the belt were the gas giants and their ecosystems.

And, beyond them were the pickets at the four jump points.

A lot of real estate to cover he reminded himself.

His eyes cut to the planet. It had layered defenses and an energy shield. But there was no guarantee that a planetary shield would protect the population from a nova. Definitely nothing outside of it. He hadn't heard any story of survival yet.

He shook his head wearily and then got back to work trying to make bricks without much straw.

~~~O~~~

Ships

 So, I bought a model from MSgamedevelopment over on CGtrader.com and modified it into a few ships.

Oh, wait, let me back up. I needed the ship for the cover of Horatio Logan Chronicles 4, The Pi Effect:

The ships you see are the new Resolution Mark III class heavy cruisers.

Here is another look:

While I was at it I decided to make the other 2 ships in the library. The Newmann Mark III Battle Cruiser:

And the North Hampton Mark III Light Cruiser:

  The ships share the same silhouette as the mark II but are very different from the hull skin to the internals. The weapons and layouts are also different. Obviously I don't have massive lidar and radar arrays, and you don't see the massive force emitter pods everywhere. More on some of that in the upcoming books.

  I passed these images around to some of the Betas and Jory bit me with doing a video. I've done videos before but not in years. I'm puttering around with the idea now. As usual I bit off more than I can chew. I always get a bit ambitious. lol

  If I move forward with it to completion I'll have to render frame by frame when I'm AFK. That will probably take a month or 2. We shall see.

Oh, test shot:

 

Very dark yes I know. Very much in the early stages. I just have 2 work lights in the shot.

  I bought another fighter (as if I needed another one!) and a cockpit that were on sale Monday from CGpitbull at CGtrader.com. Turns out I can't use the cockpit as planned, it would need the HUD to be animated. Bummer. It will turn up in pics or even a cover art someday though, no worries.

  I did a Starcraft fleet pass once before. I never did get it to render right. Also a bunch of videos for a movie I started. When I ran into render issues with Cinema 4D (It doesn't like to render AVI for some reason)... and the long renders, I shelved it. (This was 8+ years ago)

 The project was called Starcraft Beachhead. I mixed SC and SC II models I had made into it.

   Come to think of it, I think I used the admiral model for my first Admiral Irons for the cover of New Dawn. Huh.

 

  Hopefully times have changed and I can get through this one. The Engineer universe Beauty Pass (working title) is currently blocked out at 2 minutes long. At 30 frames a second... render time per frame can be as high as 5+ minutes... yeah... you do the math, I'm cringing already. :P

In other news I sent Ashes, Tales of Ragnarok 2 to Rea this morning. You should see snippets posted here shortly.

Few! That's a lot of pics!

Eagle and Ashes cover

 So, hopefully everyone had a good holiday season (a weird one I admit) and we have hopefully turned a corner with this New Year. Only time will tell.

Anyway, I wrapped up a project I started a few weeks ago. It was inspired by Jack Jack on Youtube:

I couldn't quite match is incredible skills. It was a fun project though.

 

  The eyes are glass ones from Amazon. The fur is his technique of using a 3D pen. Okay wait, let me start over. I 3D printed the head scaled up from the original. But, my CR10 was acting up, it printed it super thin like a wireframe, really nasty. So, I had to redo it with my 3D pen. (Using the thin base as a wireframe essentially)

  I then did Jack's fur technique with white PLA. That took forever! It took me 8 sessions, 2 hours each, 1-2 a night to make them all and get them on with the soldering iron. I went a bit short on mine, and I put mine in on an angle not straight up as he did. I tried the heat gun on the temple fur and it messed up even on low. 

  I cheated with the rear feathers, I got rooster feathers dyed white on a fringe and hot glued them in. They don't quite match (Warm white versus Cool white) but it works for me.

Anyway, fun project as I said.

Here is the cover to Ashes: A bit dark I admit:

I will be sending it to Rea in a week or so.

In other news I am past act 2 in HL4 that is, Horatio Logan 4 Pi Effect. Things are starting to pick up as the pieces of the story start to come together. (At least I hope so)

I'll start posting snippets of  Ashes sometime this weekend or next week once it goes to Rea.

That's all folks! For now!