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5/26/2025, 3:55:33 PM
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Click.
You slowly emerge from the bushes, fully loaded, with your weapon pointed squarely at Red Turban as you approach. While a grenade may be expecting too much, a pistol or knife may not be. He lay mostly still next to his deceased fellow raider, his chest rising and falling shallowly. His eyes are fixed upwards towards the sky. Coming closer, you see firsthand the real reason that so many wounds caused by musket balls in wars long past resulted in amputations. Your shot impacted the leg just above the right knee, inflicting a large, deep avulsion where flesh and shattered bone were wrested from Red Turban's leg. Blood still wept from the grisly wound in pulses and collected in the sizable pool underneath. It was a wonder that he was able to shoulder and fire his musket while coping with an injury like this.
Your eyes meet as you loom over him, your gun barrel directed at a point on his forehead underneath his turban. Gritted teeth, sweat, and a look of defiance mark his mature, tattooed face. You utter the first words you've spoken to another human in over seven centuries while hoping that, despite not hearing any English during the late firefight, he may be able to comprehend your words. You clear your throat.
"Hey! Can you hear me? Who are your people?" you say. "Do you understand me?"
Red Turban's eyes narrow. He makes a start at a breath, but erupts in a brief, painful coughing fit instead. You prod at his head with the muzzle of the gun impatiently. He turns his head back towards you with annoyance.
"Hotep-i." he responds with suddenly rising emotion. "HOTEPI!" What you can only interpret as the vengeful screed of a dying man follows afterwards, his yelling and curses echo through the woods, interrupted only by his gasping and coughing. You weren't getting anything else out of him, you feel, and, recalling one of the grim sayings popularized by militias and paramilitaries on all sides of the late war, "You didn't have the proper facilities to take prisoners."
K-CRACK!
So these were the Hoteps, whose presence on this planet the man on the radio laid at the collective feet of your expedition. Perhaps having killed a few could earn you some points in their book.
Click.
You slowly emerge from the bushes, fully loaded, with your weapon pointed squarely at Red Turban as you approach. While a grenade may be expecting too much, a pistol or knife may not be. He lay mostly still next to his deceased fellow raider, his chest rising and falling shallowly. His eyes are fixed upwards towards the sky. Coming closer, you see firsthand the real reason that so many wounds caused by musket balls in wars long past resulted in amputations. Your shot impacted the leg just above the right knee, inflicting a large, deep avulsion where flesh and shattered bone were wrested from Red Turban's leg. Blood still wept from the grisly wound in pulses and collected in the sizable pool underneath. It was a wonder that he was able to shoulder and fire his musket while coping with an injury like this.
Your eyes meet as you loom over him, your gun barrel directed at a point on his forehead underneath his turban. Gritted teeth, sweat, and a look of defiance mark his mature, tattooed face. You utter the first words you've spoken to another human in over seven centuries while hoping that, despite not hearing any English during the late firefight, he may be able to comprehend your words. You clear your throat.
"Hey! Can you hear me? Who are your people?" you say. "Do you understand me?"
Red Turban's eyes narrow. He makes a start at a breath, but erupts in a brief, painful coughing fit instead. You prod at his head with the muzzle of the gun impatiently. He turns his head back towards you with annoyance.
"Hotep-i." he responds with suddenly rising emotion. "HOTEPI!" What you can only interpret as the vengeful screed of a dying man follows afterwards, his yelling and curses echo through the woods, interrupted only by his gasping and coughing. You weren't getting anything else out of him, you feel, and, recalling one of the grim sayings popularized by militias and paramilitaries on all sides of the late war, "You didn't have the proper facilities to take prisoners."
K-CRACK!
So these were the Hoteps, whose presence on this planet the man on the radio laid at the collective feet of your expedition. Perhaps having killed a few could earn you some points in their book.
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