#project orion

Page 7!

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Prompt: "You were born "cursed" and with your powers "tainted" but as you grew you realized how much malarkey that was. Your powers are the exact same as any other mages the only difference your fireballs and lightning bolts and everything else comes out black. not even abyssal black just normal black"

I was only a newborn when the Shadowlord razed my parents' village, like so many others. I don't remember anything, but I know the stories. Surging black soulflames scouring the land, necromantic power that they say burned the spirit as much as the body. Armies of the undead rising where bolts of shadow-lightning struck the ground. Like a lot of refugees we settled in Whaler's Bay, out on the coast of the Sunken Sea - in other words, the middle of nowhere. That's where I grew up. So you can understand why they were so afraid when I tried learning a few basic cantrips and lit the stove one night with a black spark. Dad...I think that was the only time I ever saw him truly afraid, when he saw that black flame.

They told me it was unnatural. Some kind of curse, a taint picked up when they were fleeing the Shadowlord's army. Told me to never use it, to not let anyone see. And for the longest time that's what I did. Still practiced a few basic spells in secret...but I wanted out of that town. A man can only stand the smell of rancid blubber for so long, so I learned to swing a sword, to read the land, you know, all the classic 'adventurer' bullshit. Took a job as a caravan guard and pretended I didn't know a bit of magic. Until we were jumped by a raider tribe in the Divide. Things started going bad, and well, better to be a freak than dead, right? Started throwing a few bolts of that black flame and turned things around, and we made it out. The other guards were...not very impressed, to say the least, but that's where I finally got a lucky break.

One of the merchants we were escorting was a Guild Mage apprentice, the moment she saw me cast, she was instantly obsessed with figuring out why my magic came out that color. I told her what my parents told me, it was some kind of curse. She says that would be weird but possible, and more importantly tells me it's nothing at all to do with soulflame or the Shadowlord. Once the caravan got to the Imperial City she dragged me around to what had to be every cursebreaker trying to get it worked out, but none of them can find anything. I go along with it because...well, she was really cute, and I did like the idea of using my magic now that I knew it wasn't some kind of evil.

Eventually she convinces me to come to the Imperial College so the Guild can see and maybe work out what's going on. So I show them. And here's me in the Guild Hall with a dozen archmages all debating possible reasons for my energies to be running black...until one of the elder Healers walks over and asks me what color her robe is. I tell her it's grey. She breaks out in a huge smile and knocks her staff on the floor until everyone is paying attention, then points it at me and mutters some incantation. If not for my apprentice friend Carolinne I'd have fallen flat on my ass right there. She says I just stared at her for a good five minutes mumbling, until I managed to choke out two words.

"Your eyes..."

Her and the old Healer help me to a bed in the infirmary, and once my mind settles a bit the Healer explains it. I was gods-damned colorblind my whole life. Might have been some side effect of seeing soulfire so young or just a random accident of nature, but for nigh on twenty-three years I saw everything in grey. And not just that, but I also proved something she'd been trying to show for years...that the color of a person's magic is influenced by a deep part of the mind, not decided by the mage or caused by a spell's nature. Without being able to see colors, that part of my mind couldn't apply to my magic, so it manifested in black.

They say if I really tried I could probably change it, but to be honest I don't want to. Hjalmar Blackflame is a good nickname for a Guild blade-mage, and I've scared my way out of a few touchy situations using that black magic. Which is handy as I've spent the last few years traveling to the edges of the world on Guild expeditions...alongside my dear Carolinne, whose eyes are still the prettiest thing I've ever seen.

Prompt: "Admiral, with all due respect, I am a merchant and not a mercenary. My ship is ill-equipped--" "Your ship literally outguns my first-rate warships, how can you even say your ship is ill-equipped?!"

"Outguns your - sir, this must be a misunderstanding, our only armaments are standard point-defense lasers, they couldn't scratch your hull plate. The Polaris is a chartered and registered merchant vessel, we're hauling a load of ores from-"

"Ore?" The Admiral was clearly furious, even through the stilted output of the translator system. "You expect me to believe the isotopic concentrations we're detecting are from ore? That hulk is carrying enough fissile material to crack a small planet, and your aft plate is thicker than a dreadnought's hull. You humans have a reputation for impudence, but to lie to the face of a Vorssk fleet officer?"

"Fissile material? Sir, our cargo is pelletized ferrite, there must be an error in your sensors. And what do you mean about our aft..." And then it dawns on me. Vorssk don't come this far spinward very often, this is probably the first time the good Admiral has seen a human bulk hauler. "Ah. Erm. I believe I've found the issue here, sir. Please query your database for human ship design, Rocinante-class freighter, and look closely at the propulsion system specifications."

A long pause. Then the Admiral's comm feed activates again, and the translator can barely keep up. "WHAT THE [EXPLETIVE NON-TRANSLATABLE] IS THIS?"

Yeah, he found the right entry...

"YOUR PROPULSION SYSTEM USES FISSION WARHEADS?"

"That would be correct, sir. Orion nuclear pulse drive. Humanity...well, let's say our spaceflight history is a little unconventional. Our early engineers were focused on weapons development, space travel was considered a secondary concern. Orion was a theoretical they came up with hundreds of years ago. You might have seen our warships using plasma drives, but a big bulk carrier like us? We just need straight-line delta-v to get back and forth to our slip points, and it turns out Orion is the best cheap solution."

The Thousand Greetings-class cruiser rockets (Sibirigo: Ис̄энбэину Ан̄юнхасо-кю сюн̄ёрокэ 'Issénbei-nu 'Ânniunhāsó-kiu Xiunnioróke [p=ʔisːɛꜜmbeinu aꜜɳːʉnħʌsoꜜcʉ ɕuɳːöɾoꜜkɛ]) are old and almost nostalgic-looking next to the austere wedge hulls of new spacecraft. They'd be long-obsolete without being gutted and filled with new equipment five times over, they've outlived almost every warship of their time and quite a few new classes. Many say they won't survive the next war between major space powers, many others counter that neither will the Earth and in the meantime they're serving just fine as the staple of power projection.

The Thousands were lucky enough to have installed the best-aging engine model to date, a massive tower of electrified pistons with a specific impulse and thrust so far above their peers that it took decades for any other tech to come close. They used to be almost torpedo-proof since little else could catch up to them. The generous nose space freed up by shrinking electronics was just enough to mount a shiny new ultra-relativistic electron beam bombard in recent years, a proof that the admiralty want it to hang around for at least a decade more.

The SSS Tunguska Vermillion (Sib. ССС Туг̄уска Вамирён Sánesu Tūngûska Vamirión [saꜜnɛsɯ tuŋːuꜜskɐ βʌmiɾʲöꜜɴ]) is the oldest Thousand still in use, being third of twelve vessels built in total. Despite the ridiculous length of one kilometer, its crew isn't any bigger than on a seagoing cruiser. Much of the space is taken up by fuel charges, heat sinks, torpedoes and armor. Only a small crew section in the center is pressurized.

Side note: all the features on this vessel are designed to work with real life physics and consulted with a bunch of people smarter than me, including actual engineers. Yes, even the nuke engine. Especially the nuke engine. It was featured on several real-life spacecraft proposals of the US government.

Under the wings of solaria is my own personal hard sci fi story. Altough this is during the interplanetary war event with orion battleships