Night 57: Hall of Armor
[from here]
Shapes loomed in the dark, the size of people in spacesuits, and Taura pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath. Not that she expected Goku to manage quiet, even after agreeing to the plan, but one of them might stay out of sight.
When none of the figures moved, she took a breath, and slid along the wall. They were suits, all right, but made of metal, and empty. Most of them held old, heavy weapons, stained with dried blood and as primitive as the shields they carried. They looked like something out of a history book. But a few were different. Cleaner, definitely. One of them had been burnished to a mirror finish, and it held a completely modern plasma arc in its hand. There were a number of ways it could be rigged to explode; she checked each. Power pack, focus, trigger -- everything was as ship-shape as a Dendarii armory, except that it had been put away loaded with a full cartridge. She pulled it free.
It rested in her left hand like it had been born there. She'd found the standard-issue ones a little small, so she'd wrapped the barrel with some quick-set foam; this one was wrapped the same way, but it fit this hand as perfectly as hers had back home.
There were two more cleaner suits of armor; three suits for three party members? They didn't look like they'd be very comfortable to wear, and she couldn't pick the one that had been carrying the plasma arc up -- it didn't even budge.
"It's clear," she called. "Come look at these."
Shapes loomed in the dark, the size of people in spacesuits, and Taura pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath. Not that she expected Goku to manage quiet, even after agreeing to the plan, but one of them might stay out of sight.
When none of the figures moved, she took a breath, and slid along the wall. They were suits, all right, but made of metal, and empty. Most of them held old, heavy weapons, stained with dried blood and as primitive as the shields they carried. They looked like something out of a history book. But a few were different. Cleaner, definitely. One of them had been burnished to a mirror finish, and it held a completely modern plasma arc in its hand. There were a number of ways it could be rigged to explode; she checked each. Power pack, focus, trigger -- everything was as ship-shape as a Dendarii armory, except that it had been put away loaded with a full cartridge. She pulled it free.
It rested in her left hand like it had been born there. She'd found the standard-issue ones a little small, so she'd wrapped the barrel with some quick-set foam; this one was wrapped the same way, but it fit this hand as perfectly as hers had back home.
There were two more cleaner suits of armor; three suits for three party members? They didn't look like they'd be very comfortable to wear, and she couldn't pick the one that had been carrying the plasma arc up -- it didn't even budge.
"It's clear," she called. "Come look at these."