hkmiller wrote:
Haven't C&C'd one of DB's in a while, and this is a fun series.
% Thanks. Always appreciate the C+C and glad you liked it.
DB Sommer wrote:
Prologue
��And it is hereby the decision of this court that Saginomiya Machine is
Looks like you start out there with a smart quote and a single-char
ellipses, neither standard
ASCII. And I see some smart quotes lower down as well.
% Yeah. I gotta figure out how to get rid of those permenantly one of
these days.
�It just proves what a slut she is.�
�Three of them were women.�
Heh.
% Which proves what a slut she is. :)
As the sixteen year old left the court building altogether, she stared
up at the sky, not for help for her financial situation, but for aid in
how to go about making those that had schemed against her pay. She had
no assets, monetary or otherwise, and would be tossed out of her
ancestral home within days.
Heh. Perfect setup for a "Daphne in the Brilliant Blue" fusion?
% Haven't seen that one.
She had never bothered saving any her
salary, assuming her family�s fortune would always be there and she
could dip into it. She had spent her personal funds on being both a high
profile debutant and financing expensive private science projects which,
while emotionally satisfying, were money pits. Now she was left with
nothing, not even a chauffer to drive her to her home. What was she to do?
Either fight Kodachi, or join a local all-woman private investigation
firm whose members
wear ridiculously fanservicy outfits...
% We'll go with the former.
Asuka looked the curious, non-descript, man over. While she had known
many people who rode in such vehicles, this wasn�t one of them. �Funny,
you don�t look like a Nome King.�
Gnome King, perhaps?
% Nope. It's an Oz reference, and Baum spelled it that way.
Standing from a position nearly thirty feet away, Kodachi Kunou nodded
at the technician standing next to the control panel to signal the start
of the test. It wasn�t as though she was incapable of operating the
controls, but it would perceived as unseemly for one of her stature in
Kunou Industries to manipulate personally operate things when she could
"manipulate personally operate"? Suggest simply "personally operate".
% Used most of the grammar recommednations.
collateral damage. If you�re trying to hit a target that moves out of
the path of the beam, you don�t have to worry about it following through
and hitting something you don�t want destroyed.�
That met with a murmur of agreement from the members.
...who ignored the obvious question here: how long does it take to
program the range? And does
KI have any innovations in range-finding techniques? Now, building a
radar or laser range-finder
into the cannon might make this feature useful, but otherwise I am
reminded of WWI and WWII
artillery, firing against fixed targets after laborious, error-prone
calculations.
% Heh. This is very light in the technical expertise department. Clancy
I am not. That's why the precise spec were given to the men afterwards.
Kodachi continued, �While the Safecracker is too big to be carried
around by hand, it can be mounted on a large armored vehicle.
Alternately numerous cannons can be put on a ship or up to two on a
Suggest comma after "alternately." And wouldn't the "two on a plane"
depend on the plane?
Is that two on a C-5A Galaxy, or two on an F-16?
% I fixed that by reworking the paragraph and she only refers to putting
one on.
plane. The only small disadvantage is its rate of fire is slow, but
that�s because it�s intended to attack heavy, reinforced targets, rather
than small ones with few defenses.�
First time through, I went right through this easily. Second time
through, I find I'm wondering
how such a weapon would fit into current combat doctrine.
% In the real world it wouldn't.but you know how the Marvelverse is.
Never know when an alien spaceship or local hillside will declare itself
an alien and try to conquor the world. They arm for that.
�As do I,� Orihara seconded. �But in the meantime, it falls to you to
run the company. KI employs thousands of people all across Japan. If
something unpleasant were to happen to your company, like your military
contracts drying up, bad things might happen. At the very least there
would be massive layoffs, and perhaps your company would go under, like
Saginomiya just did.�
What district does Orihara represent, one wonders? Certainly SOME
politician ought to
be fighting hard to get Kodachi this contract...
% True, but assume Orihara has amassed enough personal power to quelch
one voice.
�That�s a matter of opinion,� Orihara insisted. �There are so many
intangibles to consider, which is why landing these lucrative contracts
is so cutthroat.�
There ARE intangibles to consider,
% Yep. The hazy shades of gray that let you do just about anything.
although I can certainly see Kodachi
overlooking these.
The company's ability to actually manufacture a lot of weapons with
acceptable quality,
for instance, and to service them for decades afterwards.
% KI does have a good enough reputation that they do that.
�No, no, no,� Orihara said quickly. �Not bribes. These were
contributions to the Hokkaido Reclamation Project. I�m sure he kept
records of the donations. Look into it and you�ll see.� Orihara started
to walk away, then turned back around. �I�d hurry and look it up,
though. We�re scheduled to check out Fujikawa-Stane�s new missile that
does many of the same things your cannon does. At has the advantage of
being more portable and having a greater range. It makes things very
neck-and-neck between you. I�d hate to see you lose out to someone
that�s more interested in securing these sorts of contracts.�
No compaign contributions?
% Nah. This was determined as a better way to personally line his
pockets. He has enough of a stranglehold on his election area he doesn't
need to shake down people for money
Incompetents, every last one of them. Asuka had come to the realization
that Hell was being brilliant in a world full of stupid people.
Meaning that she thinks she's in hell right now...
% Yep.
flight system she had just installed. Now the armor could generate the
airspeed of a cruise missile, though at that velocity it wasn�t very
maneuverable. Still it was faster than any mere jet fighter.
This struck me as a strange pair of statements. I thought the whole
point of cruise missiles
was that they didn't have to go very fast, since they're small and fly
close to the ground?
And jet fighters can exceed Mach 2 easily. (Maybe you've been watching
too much '24'?
Somebody told me there was a preposterous cruise missile sequence in the
most recent season.)
% And lazy me didn't bother to look up stuff I should have. Land to air
missile might be better, then.
Asuka rolled her eyes at the imbecile. �Yes, well by definition a
�projection� is a guess, and I don�t see how you can hold me responsible
because a few know-nothing bean counters, like yourself, can�t figure
out how much a sack of rice will cost next week.�
Heh. Funny, that never works for me, either, telling the bean counters
that my cost or schedule
overruns are their fault...
% Yeah, the scurvy bastards.
She had hoped that would end the discussion, but Minoru pressed on.
�Prof. Kuroki informs me that everything was going fine until you
started incorporating the weapons and flight systems from the
M.A.U.L.E.R battle armor we got from Cordco into your design. According
to Prof. Kuroki, the systems aren�t really that compatible and it�s
taking a huge amount of time and money to make them so, which are where
the cost overruns are occurring.�
Heh. "Cordco"? Wasn't that one of Iron Man's opponents?
% Depended on who was in charge. Drexel, the founder, yeah, but he died
at the hands of his creation. When Janice took over, no, since she was
in a love triangle with Iron Man and the third Crimson Dynamo. She was
inadvertently killed by the Titainium Man in a free for all between the
three. When Edwin took over he's been a persistant off and on foe.
Raiders, Mauler, and several other bad things which Tony has fought over
the years. In this universe Drexel went insane, and Janice was
apparently killed by Edwin and their company bought up by this
mysterious figure. She's already tried to kill Tatewaki with Cordco's
Raiders, as he mentioned in a flashback. Now the Mauler armor has popped
up, in limited fashion.
�We don�t want to market the SL-000 as a stand alone weapon system. We
are going to sell it as a standard unit with optional augmentation
packages. Certainly your current design would be ideal for taking on a
tank battalion, but what if it�s needed for reconnaissance, or rescue
operations, or hostage removal? Everything you�re adding would lessen
the unit�s effectiveness for those sorts of operations.�
Now, THIS discussion strikes me as good real-world weapon marketing.
% Heh. It's by accident thenm
�Don�t play games with me,� Asuka snorted in derision. �I know your
primary concern is marketing this as military hardware. That�s where the
real money�s made.�
Not necessarily... the volume on good, reasonably-priced rescue suits
would be high.
% True, but their fixated on one thing at the moment.
�How devious.�
�How businesslike, and if you can�t see that, it�s no wonder your
company went bankrupt.�
Heh. Still, even if Asuka has better business advisors now, I get the
impression your Kodachi
learns a bit more willingly than Asuka does.
% She does.
�What?�
�Steel Lilly. The SL in the project name means �Steel Lilly,�.�
I think somebody else already pointed this out, but you've got two
different spellings for "Lily".
% Have since corrected.
Some people tried to hold their breath and make it
toward the door to escape, but they discovered it locked and the exiting
code failed to work.
Suggest "they found it locked". And why is there an "exit code"? Isn't
this room higher
security than the other side of the door?
% You can lock it from either side. Asuka tampered with it beforehand.
of bribes. Blowing the whistle on him at this point would still leave
KI�s reputation in shambles, even if it was her late father who had done
the bribing.
Very true. I remember hearing of one case where a company internal
investigation found the
manager of one factory guilty of bribery. He was fired, and the entire
matter reported to the Feds,
but the company was still barred from all federal procurement for
several months as part of
a settlement, and the damage to its reputation lasted for many, many years.
% Yep. It's definitely not in her best interest to fall on her sword here.
Pride, responsibility, and honor weighed heavily on her soul as she sat
silently in her office and pondered her options.
U.S. law is clear here: she ought to be reporting the matter anyway (at
least, for a bribe request
this clumsy). This, however, is Japan, where standards and laws are
somewhat different.
% She still should be reporting it, but she doesn't because it would
damage her.
Might want to add more to the dilemma: she'll have to close a factory
if she doesn't win the
deal, it's the only factory in its somewhat-isolated town, meaning that
workers whose livelihood
is her responsibility will be out of work for months or years...
% That would be overstating it, and i want to show she's not a paragon
of virtue when it comes to business. Not that she's happy about the
cuthroat nature of it.
Activating her loudspeaker, she shouted, �If you thought something like
that would be marketable, I�m doing you a favor in reducing it to
scrap.� She looked around and, realizing she was in the heart of her
only remaining enemy�s stronghold, decided to have some fun.
The Asuka you've described wouldn't have only three enemies.
% There's three that are on her immidiate 'to kill' list, and Kodachi is
the only one left on it.
�My armor can still kick your armor�s ass,� Iron Rose said, then slumped
against the control panel.
Strikes me as an odd think for Kodachi to say, given that the final blow
wasn't FROM her armor...
% In her mind Asuka cheated by involving innocents as weapons, so
Kodachi returned the favor by using a cannon she designed as a weapon.
She's clarfying in her mind she could have beaten Asuka anyway if she
hadn't cheated earlier.
interesting places, as it turned out. Very many interesting places,
including one from Saginomiya Machine. That�s why you won the contract.
After that one loss, my father simply out bribed yours. That was why we
kept winning contract after contract. It wasn�t because you stood on
some moral high ground; my father was simply a better cheater than yours
was. Well, that and KI makes better things than SM ever did. I just
thought you should know you threw away your life based on a lie.�
I'd think Kodachi would want to actually show Asuka some documentation
here or something.
She must know that Asuka isn't going to accept her word by itself.
% It doesn't really matter if Asuka believe it or not, Kodachi enjoyed
taunting her with it, and she'd be correct in assuming it doesn't really
matter to Asuka anymore, she'd kill Kodachi regardless of the truth.
Anyway, the usual good read; I enjoyed it. My impression is that Act 2
is more consistent than
Act 1 was in this regard.
% Not setting up things, although I haven't had the cast working
together much yet. Next two chapters should address this, if i find the
time to write it. Otakon is coming up, and i need to prepare for it. :)
It was nice to give Kodachi the moral dilemma as a change of pace,
although that part of the
story didn't go too deep. But, then again, it wouldn't really fit the
tone of the series too well
to go much deeper.
% And how long can I dwell on it without beating it to death. Likewise I
leave her final decision,that she was willing to bribe him, until the
very end. As a general rule, heros aren't supposed to do that
% Anyway, thanks for the feedback. It's really appreciated. It helped a lot.
DB Sommer
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