SMG-armed dude (or is that a bullpup carbine?) in the last panel is firing full-auto it looks like, counting the number of shots. That means one at least one of: He's panicking instead of making controlled shots, his weapon is too weak to do enough damage without multiple hits on target to get stopping power, or he's a terrible shot. Whichever one(s) of those it is, aim suffers when you fire a projectile firearm weapon like that full-auto. Even if he's skilled he'll be lucky to get tight-ish shot clusters, and spray-and-pray is only likely to do much damage to Irene, the decor, and his team guessing by the fact that Maxus just took a cut across the torso and threw a combat gynoid immediately after.
So yeah, I don't expect he'll be doing much more than amateur redecorating or damaging things other than Maxus with that fart of gunfire, even at this close a range. Maxus is moving fast, ridiculously resilient and up against opponents that have lived thinking of him as a combat legend for many years.
(Incidental, I'm mildly disappointed the onomatopoeia wasn't "dakka" but maybe this is for the best.)
That looked like two rapid fire bursts. Based on my knowledge of Maxus it would take at least half a clip from a weapon of that size to take him down since I'm pretty sure his skeleton and skin are way tougher than normal.
Not to mention, the closer your target is to you, the less useful a firearm is. There is a reason no Marine is without his K-bar.
People make the mistake of thinking that a gun is a magic wand and that it fires instantly, it takes a half second to go from aim to pull trigger (speed of neurons between brain and hand). Maxus probably has wired reflexes, so his response time from brain to legs is speed of light.
Now the time for the various brains to process, decide on an action, and feed that action to the motor cortex for processing...
Quote anonymous coward, "aim suffers when you fire a projectile firearm weapon like that full-auto" In the vernacular we call it "Spray and Pray" tactic used by troops assaulting a fixed defended position, by first time full auto weapon users or someone who is scared s#!tless by what they are facing.
The weapons are firing plasma packets they dont use casings ( as you can see there are none .. ) the weapons are in Semi auto mode each weapon firing 3 rounds at a time. They know better than to spray and pray.
Rose actually picked the sound all i put in was ( SFX : gunfire ) in my protoscript
Curiously, flinging small high velocity pasma balls, would sound roughly the same as glinging small high velocity lead balls, since most of the noise comes from the displacement of air, and hot air escaping the barrel.
If the plasma was used to power a Laser/Maser, it would be vastly different, as the explosion would be prolonged, and give less of a snap, and more of a thumb sound.
Plasma weapons? Stun weaponry for an assassination? I think I'm missing something.
Either way, it was not lost on me that after telling the security system that there was an assassination attempt in progress Irene tossed Maxus a sword, and not a gun.
Having had both as my personal weapon and qualified 'Master' on them, I feel safe in saying that there's a world of difference between a battle rifle such as a C7/M16 or AK or FN/FAL on automatic and a true Submachine Gun. The rifle has a much more pronounced 'muzzle climb' and recoil making it hard to remain on target for more than short 2-3 round bursts. An SMG, on the othr hand can have virtually no recoil or muzzle climb, depending on the particular weapon. The C1/Sterling in 9mm is very, very controllable in automatic fire. I've fired entire 30 round magazines in both short bursts and one long one and kept all rounds in the centre ring at up to 15 yards from the waist and at 25-50 yards in 2-3 round bursts from the shoulder. Apples and Oranges.
Weeeell... they are soldiers trained in the army of an emperor, so... they did go to the Imperial School of Marksmanship! All Maxus and Irene need are a lightsabre and a pair of clip-on Leia-braids, and the guards won't be able to hit them at all!
Malati: Smooth move... now see how you handle this - *puts on eyepatch* - my pretty-pretty! *swaggers towards them, whirling her blades*
Everybody firing got one "brakka" effect (there's a reason for this which will become evident on future pages), and there are a half-dozen guys. I really should have realized that the "three-round burst" assumption would be made, and used six separate "brakka"s rather than grouping them, but I do pages in batches and there was a lot of sound-effect work to manage.
It's hard to represent the action of weaponry that is theoretical at best in onomatopoeia: Call me lazy but I would've been sorely tempted to just use "pyew-pyew" in your shoes.
Oh I know about the A-10's engine sound. When I was in the Army we had some fly over about 100 feet above us. I was VERY glad we all had our ear pro in.
I don't know about out the front, but the AC-130 gunships have 105 howitzers on the side, each shot kicks the tail over 15-20 degrees, they could fly in a circle without rudder just recoil.
I knew about the AC-130 and the side firing 105. It wasn't until I saw a special about the Vietnam War that I learned about the forward firing 105 though. It was used in Laos and Cambodia for a few months before being sent back to the states.
Hurricane fighters used 40mm cannon in WW2 for tank busting in the desert, they're much smaller than a C-47 and they didn't "stop in the air" that's a complete myth. The A/C weighs much more than the slug and when mass x velocity is calculated has more much, much more forward momentum to balance. The eight browning machine guns in the wing had a greater shot weight firing at 1200 rpm each than the single 40mm shell did at a comparable muzzle velocity and they didn't 'stall the A/C'. Several other A/C, including as small as Stukas, had up to 75mm cannon for the same purpose and didn't fall out of the sky when they fired.
There is a difference between a 40 mm cannon in a Hurricane Which was actually a 20 mm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Hurricane#Specifications_%28Hurricane_Mk.IIC%29
The Bofors is 40 mm x 365R, and there is video of an AC-47 firing the 40 mm Bofors out the front and the plane DOES stop, every time it's fired. There is also a video of an AC-47 pilot saying that they couldn't fire more than one clip of shells because they would lose too much altitude.
The videos are on youtube if you care to look for yourself.
Now there may have been a version of the Hurricane that used a 40 mm cannon, however I have not seen any documentation on it as of yet.
Also I NEVER said that they fall out of the sky. I said they stop for a bit in the air. Recoil forces DO cause that in some aircraft. IIRC the Yak 7 was tested with a 30 mm cannon during WWII and they had to much instability issues when firing more than 10 shells.
I don't know if the instability isses were from recoil or exhaust gasses entering the engine, just that there were issues.
I am now officially impressed with Maxus. don't have a much more to add, because there's gonna be a lot going down, and I would rather cheer as it happens then try to second guess it.
Not to mention that Decimus is probably not his only enemy, so it would be sensible to be prepaired.
And then there's the whole thing where Irene was once a victim, and neither Irene, nor MAxus, would ever want that to be the case again, so just to keep her safe, there would be added security - Never again!
Nova Roma doesn't go in for A.I.S., but as the alt-text points out, expert systems are a thing. Naos is the designation for the one in Maxus's quarters.
Don't bring a knife to a gunfight, anonymous? The sword is a more elegant weapon, not as clumsy or random as a blaster. :-D Especially in the hands of someone as skilled as Maxus!
I was thinking in terms of Shielding now that the security system is turned on... My guess is that it is rendering the projectiles completely useless, whereas a blade might be effective.
It's definitely not "just" a sword. It looks to me like a gladius. Guess who historically were the premier wielders of a gladius, much like samurai with their katanas :D
A gladius is just a simple, straight shortsword, nothing too special. Yeah, Maxus may be particularly familiar with using one for cultural reasons but it's not some magical best weapon for melee: It notably lacks a guard and length. Maxus has something like a half dozen people with credible means of killing him to put down quickly, and a shortsword lacks reach, so he'd better have some magic-tech 'guns don't work now' feature on.his security system or else that's a pretty questionable choice. Notably, one of his opponents which is supposed to be faster than him also has a longer sword, so a gladius won't help much for that except giving him an edge to try and do some cutting of his own.
@Anon Coward that might not be a Gladius, it might be a Spatha which has a much longer blade. We can't really tell because of the angle it is shown being thrown.
Oh yeah, Rose is probably making a killing on this video feed, so to speak.
All the bookmakers of Nova Roma has a sudden influx of bets placed on Maxus. >_<
I'm guessing this might be part of what Dolly is waiting for, to happen before she can get going herself.
I'm surprised Maxus doesn't want private recordings in his security system. They'd be useful to have something to look through if things happened, items went missing--or mysteriously appeared--and he wants to know how, when and who was involved or present. I know if I was a VIP I'd want something like that and would use it to do random auditing just so that I could check up on what the help does while they think they aren't being watched. Multiple, independent systems to make trying to circumvent or subvert all of them harder.
That would be a good thing, Cent. Broadcasting video of the attempted assassination of the highly respected (and, I suspect, much beloved) general in charge of the military (and a known supporter of Acantha) especially if it shows that drekhead's jackboots are directly involved...without such feeds being subverted, any video recordings of this incident would be buried if not destroyed...
Next thing coming up, traps !
And possibly also some old military war-bots incoming.
It's amazing what an army has just lying around, all forgotten, that a general can make good use of.
Kinda called it, with Irene supplying Maxus with weapons. :)
But it just made so much sense, it's not like he has time to go looking for stuff himself.
Yes, you did Sheela. I KNEW it was stupid to attack Maxus in his own room though. If ANYONE was going to have things set up to stack the odds in his favor, it would be Maxus. He knows he spends time here, sleeps there. So he would want to make it as secure as possible, since people would know that he would be there.
Hard to say whether they knew of it. They most likely expected it though. They're not stupid. And actually tend to think things through, other than their current supreme commander.
Prof has a point though, Maxus is now justified in attacking Decimus.
Not that it will stop Decimus from attacking back, nor that it would stop his backers from backing him up.
BUT - Maxus' backers have free reign too. This should be interesting. :)
His gaze alone, stops bullets in their tracks.
A single flex of his muscles, makes machines swoon in a haze of lust.
His right eyebrow, unaided, could defeat Chuck Norris.
Hah! Hrist goes airborne and into a pillar. Got it half right. Short bursts from the hip or moving are in no way accurate against a moving target. That' s sheer desperation there.
Well one thing I'm thinking here is Big M doesn't actually have to win this fight, just survive long enough for his own personal guard to even the odds
I wouldn't be surprised if, with Irene's actions, the odds are heavily in favor of Maxus and Irene being the only survivors of this little dust-up. Especially given the panicked reaction of the jackboots.
The tech nerd at the Guild Hall tells me that Plasma rounds can be stopped by a high concentrated energy field thingamajig and if it works anything like DX fields I'm gonna have to request that Maxus holds up his hand like Neo from the matrix.
Plasma is matter that has been heated so hot that the electrons break orbit from the atomic nuclei they belong to and dissociate. Experimental means of directing and containing it tend to involve electromagnets, so I guess you could stop moving plasma with a(n) (electro)magnetic field, sure. You could also stop it through contact with air too, which is what's puzzling me.
"He and his team made clear their successful creation of a device able to launch a ring of plasma distances of up to two feet."
The problem with plasma in air is that air works pretty well to cool down or disrupt plasma, so the potentially-practical plasma weapons I know of are lasers that generate plasma exactly when and where it's needed either at the target (pulsed energy projectile) or creating an ionized column for electrical conduction (electrolaser). One of those is a sonic/shockwve stunner weapon, the other is a taser without wires, neither is intended to be lethal.
I've actually spent a fair amount of time working on the logistics of defending against the stuff for wargames.
Active defenses are ideal but sometimes you don't have those.
Passively, an ablative coating is your first line of defense, the outer shell of your armor should be highly conductive with an extremely high melting point to conduct heat around the outside and disperse it, while the innermost layer should be heavily insulated. It's also sometimes advisable to add a layer of refraction and diffraction measures to help with radiant energy. This also renders the internal components relatively safe from energy weapons, whether this be on a ship, a powered assault suit, or a tank.
Tungsten, carbon fiber, various alloys, and a variety of other carbon and silicate compounds are used in such.
The ablative coating should have a high temperature before it begins to boil mind you, its job isn't to cool you in a desert, it's to disperse a little energy from energy weapons before it gets to the rest of the armor. It's also how you paint the camouflage on those armors.
I liked to layer active defenses and passive defenses. I tended to slap some magnetic deflection or dispersion shielding ontop of it, but it's awfully hard to shoot out of that so you have to lower it to fire. It also struggles with conventional warheads that aren't exactly charged or magnetic, so while it protects from ionized energy and ferro-magnetic projectiles (ie. anything a railgun launches) it doesn't do jack to a good old fashion HEAT shell or ramjet U238 tungsten carbide tipped Teflon coated penetrator.(exactly why I make so much use of those)
EDIT: the difficulty with setting up that kind of armor is that it's expensive, bulky, and is pretty much limited to powered armor at the lightest. I've seen a few guys figure out how to incorporate it into cybernetics, but it loses a lot of effectiveness due to the smaller area and the lesser degree of contiguous contact of the outer shell.
@Anon Coward It depends on the type of ions being energized in the plasma IIRC. I was reading through CERN's website a few years back and on the news page they had a link to a possible plasma shield to pre-detonate anti-tank missiles. They said it was a "Cool" Plasma only about 90-110 degrees Fahrenheit compared to the several hundred to thousand degrees of "Hot" plasma.
There was also an experimental Plasma shield experiment that was setup on the ISS a few years back. I read I think a paragraph about it way back then, but I haven't seen anything about it on the NASA website since.
@Mark_L_A
I tried looking up what you're talking about, was this it?
"The technology — which uses a laser to create a curtain of miniature plasma explosions like firecrackers to turn an enemy away — could be adapted to turn it into a physical shield, capable of warding off projectiles."
This seems to be a defensive usage of PEP-laser ignition of plasma at a distance to disrupt or destroy missiles. That could reasonably work if they're guided missiles, and theoretically work against dumb projectiles as well. Low temperature plasma in atmosphere might even be possible too: If your laser is tuned to the right frequency (and such a frequency exists) you could ionize some plasma with low amounts of waste heat. I'll believe in it when it's being used as main combat equipment though, for the moment this all seems to be airy-fairy drawing board stuff, much like naval rail guns used to be (and likely still are).
@Sheela
Right, I suppose people not familiar with plasma would need that detail to make sense of why I think plasma is mostly a pretty silly weapon in atmosphere, thank you.
Just noticed, the way Hrist his the wall and remembering where her swords' sheath was, she is going to have some damage to her spine. Even for a Cassian getting hammered like that on the spine is going to do some damage. How debilitating it actually is however, I don't know.
You're presupposing Cassian design has a singular spine, and that this supposed single spine has similar rigidity and flexibility problems to a human spine.
Doesn't have to be harder to make some damage though. The fact that it's there and, more importantly, unequally distributed along her back would be enough.
Sheela, going off the fact that a mere 12 lbs of offset pressure can break a vertebrae of a human, a blow transferred to Hrist's spine at the angle her swords sheathe is could possibly do a lot of damage. It might be temporary damage but damage non the less. leading to partial temporary paralysis or greater damage. Kind of like getting a hard hit in football and getting shut down for a while while your body recovers from the hit.
The problem with that 12bs one is that it's not a spinal cord damaging break as I recall. As I recall the spine was remarkable tough to compensate for how squishy its contents were. Kinda like the human skull.
However, several hundred to perhaps a few thousand pounds of force were just applied. Even if the bone substitute somehow survived, the contents could have readily been damaged.
I'd also say her brain took a beating inside the skull, and as I recall, the android brain wasn't sturdy enough to take that much force even though it is rather sturdier.
I'm thinking at a minimum she has the equivalent of a minor concussion and shocked nerves from her spine being banged up so hard. It may not be debilitating, however it will take her a little bit of time to get her brain and nerves functioning again properly for her to respond appropriately to any further blows from Maxus.
I know when I got hit by an axe handle many years ago it took me several minutes to start tracking properly. (Not an intentional hit, it was an accident) Hrist's "Brain" may recover faster than a human's, however there will still be some reduction in function for a brief while.
As for the blow to her spine, due to the angle of her scabbard and going solely off of human physiology, she could have reduced use of her lower body upto possibly her xiphoid process area.
As we would say it when I was a medic in the Army, she just got her bell rung.
Keep in mind that Hrist isn't a human, nor a cyborg. She's a machine through and through. Her spine is jointed metal, not bone. Her Damage Avoidance System is telling her that it would be nice if she didn't get chucked around like that again, though. :D
I tend to think the Casca command takes the whole area into gladiator mode. Meaning the firearms may stop working and it's blade only. Hrst and Malati know this as Hrst opened with blade and we know Malati is the causian version of wolverine.
I think Irene just leveled the field a little, to give her warrior a chance.
I think you might be right, Ialverson. Irene has activated something to help Maxus, just not sure what form that help will be in.
What impressed me was how mentally tough Irene is. She overcame her terror (Oh...Goddess...The Prince's Own...) and surprise to take quick, decisive action. She is not combat trained, she is a POTTERY MAKER for crying out loud!!! To even be moving, instead of in a fetal position on the floor shows what an extraordinary person she is. I hope it doesn't cost her her life. I think they are shooting at her too.
I agree in that I think that Noas is about to activate something. Since she threw max a sword, I would think that a weapons suppression field or even a EMP weapon to fry the weapons electronics will be the end result.
Last panel, in front of the column just to the right of the rifle scope it appears to be 2 double hole speakers but why do I get the feeling they may be more than that?
So yeah, I don't expect he'll be doing much more than amateur redecorating or damaging things other than Maxus with that fart of gunfire, even at this close a range. Maxus is moving fast, ridiculously resilient and up against opponents that have lived thinking of him as a combat legend for many years.
(Incidental, I'm mildly disappointed the onomatopoeia wasn't "dakka" but maybe this is for the best.)
People make the mistake of thinking that a gun is a magic wand and that it fires instantly, it takes a half second to go from aim to pull trigger (speed of neurons between brain and hand). Maxus probably has wired reflexes, so his response time from brain to legs is speed of light.
Now the time for the various brains to process, decide on an action, and feed that action to the motor cortex for processing...
Rose actually picked the sound all i put in was ( SFX : gunfire ) in my protoscript
If the plasma was used to power a Laser/Maser, it would be vastly different, as the explosion would be prolonged, and give less of a snap, and more of a thumb sound.
Either way, it was not lost on me that after telling the security system that there was an assassination attempt in progress Irene tossed Maxus a sword, and not a gun.
Malati: Smooth move... now see how you handle this - *puts on eyepatch* - my pretty-pretty! *swaggers towards them, whirling her blades*
>:=)>
Do you want to play with me ?
For someone like you, I charge nothing. :)
(Or the ever popular DC comics, "buddaah, buddaah.")
https://youtu.be/NvIJvPj_pjE
The A-10's engines are insanely loud, BTW :)
There is also a video around of a C-130 doing the same with a 105 Howitzer.
I don't know about you, but if I was on those crews I'd need fresh pants after every flight.
The Bofors is 40 mm x 365R, and there is video of an AC-47 firing the 40 mm Bofors out the front and the plane DOES stop, every time it's fired. There is also a video of an AC-47 pilot saying that they couldn't fire more than one clip of shells because they would lose too much altitude.
The videos are on youtube if you care to look for yourself.
Now there may have been a version of the Hurricane that used a 40 mm cannon, however I have not seen any documentation on it as of yet.
Also I NEVER said that they fall out of the sky. I said they stop for a bit in the air. Recoil forces DO cause that in some aircraft. IIRC the Yak 7 was tested with a 30 mm cannon during WWII and they had to much instability issues when firing more than 10 shells.
I don't know if the instability isses were from recoil or exhaust gasses entering the engine, just that there were issues.
I'd say "internally intact" does not apply too well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servilius_Casca
Does Maxus' quarters have their own Security System, that Irene just Armed?
And then there's the whole thing where Irene was once a victim, and neither Irene, nor MAxus, would ever want that to be the case again, so just to keep her safe, there would be added security - Never again!
(I've had my computer hacked because of some of the stuff I wrote on one of my blogs, so I keep my security settings high)
Remember Dune?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatha
But whether the slow blade really penetrates the shield remains to be seen as of yet.
Do they have a broadcasting system for the cameras? that video could get an uprising started...
Or Rose.
All the bookmakers of Nova Roma has a sudden influx of bets placed on Maxus. >_<
I'm guessing this might be part of what Dolly is waiting for, to happen before she can get going herself.
And possibly also some old military war-bots incoming.
It's amazing what an army has just lying around, all forgotten, that a general can make good use of.
Kinda called it, with Irene supplying Maxus with weapons. :)
But it just made so much sense, it's not like he has time to go looking for stuff himself.
And if I'm not mistaken, there's not a gorram thing Doucheimnus can do about him taking apart guards and assassins that AREN'T LEGALLY THERE.
In other words, in a legal sense, Maxus is simply defending himself from an unprovoked attack.
As far as the fate of Drek and all who follow him willingly (after a certain point), I say: Heads, Spikes, Walls...
Not that it will stop Decimus from attacking back, nor that it would stop his backers from backing him up.
BUT - Maxus' backers have free reign too. This should be interesting. :)
A single flex of his muscles, makes machines swoon in a haze of lust.
His right eyebrow, unaided, could defeat Chuck Norris.
He is...
The Manliest General In The World
He once dated Sir Integra Helsing. Now, she guards her virginity closely in the hopes that he'll come back to her.
"Even his enemies list him as the person to contact in case of emergency."
In this particular case, that's actually probably true!
The problem with plasma in air is that air works pretty well to cool down or disrupt plasma, so the potentially-practical plasma weapons I know of are lasers that generate plasma exactly when and where it's needed either at the target (pulsed energy projectile) or creating an ionized column for electrical conduction (electrolaser). One of those is a sonic/shockwve stunner weapon, the other is a taser without wires, neither is intended to be lethal.
Active defenses are ideal but sometimes you don't have those.
Passively, an ablative coating is your first line of defense, the outer shell of your armor should be highly conductive with an extremely high melting point to conduct heat around the outside and disperse it, while the innermost layer should be heavily insulated. It's also sometimes advisable to add a layer of refraction and diffraction measures to help with radiant energy. This also renders the internal components relatively safe from energy weapons, whether this be on a ship, a powered assault suit, or a tank.
Tungsten, carbon fiber, various alloys, and a variety of other carbon and silicate compounds are used in such.
The ablative coating should have a high temperature before it begins to boil mind you, its job isn't to cool you in a desert, it's to disperse a little energy from energy weapons before it gets to the rest of the armor. It's also how you paint the camouflage on those armors.
I liked to layer active defenses and passive defenses. I tended to slap some magnetic deflection or dispersion shielding ontop of it, but it's awfully hard to shoot out of that so you have to lower it to fire. It also struggles with conventional warheads that aren't exactly charged or magnetic, so while it protects from ionized energy and ferro-magnetic projectiles (ie. anything a railgun launches) it doesn't do jack to a good old fashion HEAT shell or ramjet U238 tungsten carbide tipped Teflon coated penetrator.(exactly why I make so much use of those)
EDIT: the difficulty with setting up that kind of armor is that it's expensive, bulky, and is pretty much limited to powered armor at the lightest. I've seen a few guys figure out how to incorporate it into cybernetics, but it loses a lot of effectiveness due to the smaller area and the lesser degree of contiguous contact of the outer shell.
There was also an experimental Plasma shield experiment that was setup on the ISS a few years back. I read I think a paragraph about it way back then, but I haven't seen anything about it on the NASA website since.
I tried looking up what you're talking about, was this it?
"The technology — which uses a laser to create a curtain of miniature plasma explosions like firecrackers to turn an enemy away — could be adapted to turn it into a physical shield, capable of warding off projectiles."
This seems to be a defensive usage of PEP-laser ignition of plasma at a distance to disrupt or destroy missiles. That could reasonably work if they're guided missiles, and theoretically work against dumb projectiles as well. Low temperature plasma in atmosphere might even be possible too: If your laser is tuned to the right frequency (and such a frequency exists) you could ionize some plasma with low amounts of waste heat. I'll believe in it when it's being used as main combat equipment though, for the moment this all seems to be airy-fairy drawing board stuff, much like naval rail guns used to be (and likely still are).
@Sheela
Right, I suppose people not familiar with plasma would need that detail to make sense of why I think plasma is mostly a pretty silly weapon in atmosphere, thank you.
And she hasn't entered the Frey yet.
Which is doubtful.
However, several hundred to perhaps a few thousand pounds of force were just applied. Even if the bone substitute somehow survived, the contents could have readily been damaged.
I'd also say her brain took a beating inside the skull, and as I recall, the android brain wasn't sturdy enough to take that much force even though it is rather sturdier.
I know when I got hit by an axe handle many years ago it took me several minutes to start tracking properly. (Not an intentional hit, it was an accident) Hrist's "Brain" may recover faster than a human's, however there will still be some reduction in function for a brief while.
As for the blow to her spine, due to the angle of her scabbard and going solely off of human physiology, she could have reduced use of her lower body upto possibly her xiphoid process area.
As we would say it when I was a medic in the Army, she just got her bell rung.
I think Irene just leveled the field a little, to give her warrior a chance.
That would be interesting.
What impressed me was how mentally tough Irene is. She overcame her terror (Oh...Goddess...The Prince's Own...) and surprise to take quick, decisive action. She is not combat trained, she is a POTTERY MAKER for crying out loud!!! To even be moving, instead of in a fetal position on the floor shows what an extraordinary person she is. I hope it doesn't cost her her life. I think they are shooting at her too.