Snippet #2816284

Meanwhile the jungle simply watched and waited, for now it yeilded to the orders of Hanley's men and their machines. However, that wasn't to say it was without it's defenses. The jungle held dangers of it's own that these men were now subjecting themselves to, things that the locals spoke of in hushed tones for fear of bringing "la madre tierra's wrath down upon them. The locals were also fond of supersitions and rituals, anything that could potentially offer them an edge against their enemy neighbors. These were things often brought to them along with the cargo and crew of any ship that happened to stick around long enough to trade. Due to this Sky's Edge was a strange mash up of many cultures across the stars where many a young man or woman thought there might be easy fame or fortune to be had for themselves.

"You think that's going to work Cossack?" Rei asked more amused than not. Most people in her experience didn't have the guts to tell the Aschen where they could stick their gigantic troop carriers. But she had seen the trick he had pulled off, managing to bury their signal in noise of the planet and shadow generated by the Aschen ships. It wasn't something she had ever really thought of, but it so far had bought them a bit of time, and that was better than nothing. "Because I've never known the Aschen to be terribly smart in the department of leave it the fuck alone."

The warlords of the planet would more than likely take this as an invitation to use some of the worst weapons they'd managed to devise to date. Never mind the discrete, signal-less, bladder mines planted in the jungle where Hanley's men forged a path forward, keen to bend nature to their will. Instead, there were things that the Aschen hadn't yet dreamed could come out of a back water planet to be seen.

Sky's Edge and it's population had had centuries to cultivate their collective hatred against their so called lords and masters that the Aschen deigned to call themselves, into something not unlike a fine wine. And this was something that the Children of Ash had taken full advantage of. Quietly and carefully, they had taken time to refine this anger, this collective hatred of otherness, into a brilliant and crystalline suite of emotions, thoughts, and things. Things that were especially designed to communicate their hatred against those who would have left them forgotten, and abandoned.