Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 17:18:11 GMT
Vesta System
Vesta Prime
IRS Peacekeeping Zone under AGA Mandate
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Just a few weeks ago, Vesta Prime was like other Auraxii worlds after the Confederation collapsed; economically ruined and devastated from the numerous civil wars erupting between large noble families vying for control over precious resources and the remaining civilian population needed to man their factories and armies. What was once a gleaming meritocratic society with martial honour devolved into slavery and oppression of the lower classes as the nobles and warlords pressed their own people in labour camps and forced conscription. One part out of desperation to survive and keep order, another part to fulfil personal ambitions at obtaining power.
AGA forces had arrived a few days after the collapse to provide aid and restore peace in the troubled areas. After failed attempts to peacekeep the entirety of former Auraxii space with complications arising from Varren rebels, Auraxii remenants and APP raiding parties, the AGA re-consolidated their peacekeeping forces to three systems, Vesta being one of them. What was previously an Union force was soon joined in by other AGA forces; Carnaith, RSC and IRS elements joined the fray. The IRS peacekeeping forces were primarily stationed in Vesta and as such, the system was unofficially entrusted to them on behalf of the AGA. The mission that was initially established was simple; land, set up safe zones and distribute aid.
However when the IRS convoys arrived above orbit it was clear things in Vesta was more complex than it seemed. With the civil wars raging on, there was no way the IRS could simply land and give aid. Past human history had shown that providing aid with no means to defend them from predatory parties resulted in failure. The warring parties must be dismantled first.
A small battle between splintered Auraxii naval fleets and IRS ships defending their convoy soon began. The Auraxii found themselves hard pressed to focus on the battle while they were shooting each other. Suffering slight losses, the IRS ships made an aggressive push to steamroll the Auraxii fleets in one clean swoop. Frigates streaked and strafed through their lines with anti-ship torpedos, Temujin destroyers sniped them one by one while battleships and cruisers formed a bulkhead that attacked them at the front. Soon enough the system was clear of enemy space forces. The Battle of Vesta, as it was called, ended in victory and the IRS was free to deploy on Vesta Prime, the main population center of the system, how they see fit.
One entire day, 24 whole hours, was spent with no actions from the IRS fleet that hung above. Warlords and noble families continued their bloody carnage for personal pursuits while the common Auraxii anguished as usual. The IRS was observing the situation of the planet closely, using satellite visuals and tapping into the local communications network to form a picture of the current geopolitical factions at play and tracking their military movements. Auraxii language was also analysed and then compiled into downloadable digital programming packets for Linguistic Induction machines to allow IRS personnel command of the local tongue rather than simply relying on translators.
After that one day was over, the IRS began Operation Haven in earnest. Pezokh-class Baseships, escorted by dropships and Paladin Strikefighters, landed at Nezaria Plains, an area of empty tundra untouched from war nearby some small towns and cities. The population there had not been conquered by the major Auraxii powers and had been spared the worst of the civil war though they were affected economically as trade was suddenly cut off and the changes in atmospheric conditions from the pollution of war spoiled crop harvests and contaminated groundwater reserves. The civil war was still dangerously near as Auraxii factions steadily approach Nezaria to open up new war fronts and exploit new sources of manpower.
The IRS wasted no time in establishing a base of operations. Baseships unloaded multiple brigades of 5000 troops each all of them with their own tanks, logistic and engineering vehicles, artillery and more. Engineers and construction ships went to work erecting refugee centers around the Baseships built from prefrabricated habitat modules and other facilities made from retooled shipping containers as well as establishing a power grid and a water supply system. Walls, fences and barriers were next to be set up along with a network of turrets for base defence. In just half a day, Nezaria soon had a fortress of its own with what was aptly called as 'Fort Nezaria'. IRS planes soon dropped leaflets and hacked into public communication networks to announce the opening of Fort Nezaria to the local Auraxiis, a safe haven where food, clean water, housing and heaters for the winter were all ample in supply and where they would be protected from the war. The Nezarian Auraxiis were presented with a choice; leave behind their homes to survive or stay and perish with their pride. Over the next few days, millions made the trek to the Fort where they were throroughly screened for weapons and dangerous materials before they were settled in their bunks. There was no home a single family could call theirs anymore now that a bunk was shared with at least three other families but after weeks of constant poverty, starvation and malnutrition they could not care less.
The uprooting of the Nezarians from their traditional lands had a secondary sociopolitical effect. The small feudal-like nobles that governed the local towns had already been humbled by the economic crisis and now that they have been reduced to refugees their power has all been effectively dismantled. Creeping influence of IRS propaganda broadcasts (which were actually meant for IRS soldiers stationed there) subtly introduced them to the IRS's egalitarian society and ideology. New ranks of aspirant leaders soon began discussing concepts of a new Auraxii state, one that was a socialist-esque welfare state that distributes resources more fairly and promotes equality rather than the rigid divides of the aristocracy they previously knew. A week of living in Fort Nezaria effectively created a new culture, one that emphasised the community as the distributor of resources rather than the Houses as dispensaries of mere surplus.
The catalyst for the transition from a new culture to a new government came when the other Auraxii forces finally reached the region and brought the civil war with them. Troops belonging to different Houses and warlord bands occupied the small towns and shelled the regional capital city that was heavily contested between the various factions. Farms and granaries were plundered for the last bits of crop. Street fighting was brutal and civilians were either caught in the cross fire or abducted to be enslaved. Fort Nezaria also came under attack, the IRS base seen as a transgression on their sacred soil. The IRS soldiers put up a strong fight with their heavily entrenched positions and large numbers of base turrets to repel attacks. Strikefighters went on search and destroy missions to take out Auraxii armored columns and painted major staging areas for artillery firebases based within the Fort. Air missions were also sent out to stop the Auraxiis from taking away the Nezarian civilians but ultimately it proved futile as commanders were unwilling to order air strikes on the slave transports and risk their lives, nor was the IRS in a position to deploy forces in the cities and evacuate them with the heavy concentration of Auraxii forces. Footage of the Nezarians' fates angered the refugees in Fort Nezaria and galvanised the sense of martial honour characteristic of the Auxarii before their collapse within them. Between the AGA, who were their enemies in 2AW, and their own people who now enslave their own kin, the Nezarian Auraxiis made their choice. The New Vesta Social Unity (NVSU, also known as Navsu) Party was formed and they petitioned the IRS to assist them in building a new army and government and reunite the fragmented planet.
After much consideration, the IRS agreed and the refugees soon turned themselves into a standing army equipped and trained by IRS personnel. Navsu forces stormed the regional capital as rivalling Auraxii warbands battled one another for control, taking them by surprise. The IRS provided air support with bombing runs destroying the bulk of the warbands' forces leaving the Navsu guerillas to mop up the survivors. The Auraxii soon withdrew, badly battered from the surprise attack. With much confidence, the Navsu had recaptured their homelands but they were not content to stop. With IRS dropships they soon invaded other regions, hitting key Auraxii camps, supply convoys and logistical depots in precision strikes as well as spreading propaganda of their cause to ignite slave rebellions before moving in with their own forces. Under the cover of IRS air, artillery and logistical support, Navsu steadily marched across the planet, destroying one warband after another and liberating civilians oppressed under the nobles and warlords. Their armies grew to the billions with the promise of ample food (readily supplied by the IRS's humanitarian services) and freedom from the slave camps. Soon enough, the last Auraxii remnant stronghold fell as Navsu forces broke through the planetary capital and captured it. Vesta Prime was reunited, the civil war was over and the Navsu Party slowly restructured itself into a proper planetary government with the administrative assistance of IRS advisors.
Today, Vesta Prime is rapidly recovering as the IRS continued to stay at the request of their Navsu allies to assist with the restoration of their damaged infrastructure. At discounted rates, huge amounts of loans were provided to purchase materials and construction services from the IRS's state owned firms who then come in and employ the Auraxii population creating jobs and keeping unemployment low. The sights of new apartment blocks and industrial estates springing up from the scaffold gates and farmlands returning to their lush seas of green and gold inspired hope in the Vesta Prime's Auraxii people to a new brighter future, and confidence to the IRS that their peacekeeping methodology was an astounding success. It was a method that the IRS would soon replicate on other planets in the Vesta system and perhaps one day, create a new pro-AGA transgalatic Auraxii government though that remains to be discussed with other AGA nations...
Unknown Location: Neutral Space
As the Davian creature now seemed to indicate something was nearby the mist seemed to thicken as they entered the large cargo moving room, the various corridors all having led from the airlocks to this huge open space. The mist was thick here, with the darkness and mist both keeping visibility at a very short distance. Inside the room were large stacks, all boxes of industrial size and make to contain supplies or passenger cargo. Some seemed to have fallen over, creating deadends in the jungle of boxes which in some places were stacked up to the very roof of the hold, the top boxes lost in the darkness.
It was in an open loading area where the first sign of movement came from, it appeared to be the outline of a human seemingly moving across the area albeit a little slowly. The thick mist and the darkness obscured any detail of the person and the prescence of the squads now moving in on the area seemed to grab their attention. The silouette of the human now slowly walking towards the squads.
"Tracking target, forward ten degrees west," Two-One calls out upon spotting the enigmatic presence in the new holding bay they had just entered. "Do not engage or approach, I repeat, do not engage or approach. Two-All, confirm if target is anomalous."
The members of the five-man team begin testing their sensors on the mysterious individual before them. Infrared, radioactive, and psionic. While proceeding, the five crouch in their positions by the door, with the three still-cloaked Puppeteers covering the hall behind them.
The subjugator, ahead of the main Exile force marked the human, it's silhoutte highlighting on the boarding party's HUDs. She kept her cloak up for the time being, moving away from the human and taking to high ground. If she could see him, others would too... and some of them could be hostiles. She needed to be prepared if the bullets started flying...
Alison, for her part, was decidedly less concerned about hostiles. Profiles made it seem unlikely either the Davians or the Free Worlders would start shit, and if the two unknowns wanted to have a go she supposed she could count on the Annoliddans at least to back her up.
So, when the human was highlighted by Firefly, she decided that she'd had quite enough of waiting on scans and threat assessments when she'd been hunting the System with the Echoes. Rather than wait on any scans, the Exiles emerged from the red mist, their guns trained on the lone form shambling across the hangar.
Only Alison kept her weapon down, whistling to grab the attention of the loner.
"Over here, boy!" Cletus added, as though the whistle hadn't been obvious enough.
The Corpsmen had held their position while the drone gave the main hold a look, scanning the area for a minute or two before zipping right back to the Explorer that'd deployed it. Following that they moved into the room with their weapons ready, spreading out slightly in case they were attacked. When they spotted the BSO and whatever other units were near them the troopers gave a start but they shifted their attention to the form now moving towards them.
Orders were silently given over closed helmet radios, and the Explorers moved to either kneel and aim, or move to cover among the crates and boxes. The KIDSS troopers readied their machine guns and aimed, ready to advance and lay down an unholy level of fire when and if it was needed. Another order was given by the team leader, and the Explorer nearest to the figure raised their scanner towards the figure and turned it on. There wasn't anything in particular that the Explorer was looking for, a wide-spectrum scan, but if there was anything they could learn about who this was while the unknowns with the... rough attitude spoke to them, that was all the more they knew.
Fear... heart beat rising... panic... trying to flee.... Those were probably the feeling of the Davian test subject which exposed to the mysterious mist, or whatever nearby. Of course the Davian squad would notice their creature's behavior and documented it before the medic walked out and retrieved the box with the creature within. She also didn't forget to take some samples of the mist. Then the team moved forward slowly and carefully.
A short while later they entered the place where the other squad staying. Then they saw that human silhouette moving toward the seemingly BSO unit. The team, still staying behind the foreign units, quickly found a favorable defensive position and formed themselves into defensive stand while not forgot to scan the moving creature with any kind of scanner they carried. As usual the team formed themselves so that they would not be surprise by attacks from any angles and would not be wipe out by a single heavy attack.
"Get the bots to look around while keeping that bird above us."
"Ro. comrade"
The Davian tiny bots which accompanied the team began to move out and began to scan everything around including terrain, stuff, ... the foreign units however would not be scan to avoid possible misunderstanding.
Meanwhile a single encrypted message using the same communication which the Davian usual used to contact with the Annoliddan was sent toward them. The message was simple: "Hail honored Annoliddan. Davian unit request co-operation with you in this joined investigation."
The Annoliddan complement stopped upon sighting a form amongst the cargo. Tevir gave signal for the squad to hold position and observe. "Reading you clearly, copy and out." He responded over helmet comms to the Davians. Switching back to an open channel, he alerted all others who had yet to see the form, pinging its location on sensors. "Target to front, analyzing."
Tevir gave a silent signal to Demoindt to test the humanoid form. The hand signal command was a rather broad one, simply asking that he probe at what was ahead of them. Seeing no support from sensors or other readings, Demoindt simply produced a multiwrench from his belt and flung it at the shambling form.
The throw was on point for the artisan's purposes, aimed to fly just barely past the humanoid's head, create a small breeze in the air, and clang against the metal floor past the creature.
As the wrench flew, Tevir gave a queer look behind his helmet visor back at Demoindt, who simply shrugged in response.
The man turned at the wrench being thrown from the Annolidians seemingly ignoring the other shoutings and talking. He moved fairly quickly as the fog began to recede.
It quickly became clear this was not going to be a regular boarding, the horror of the sight was disturbing.
The mans head and face were totally rotted, skin was hanging from neucrotic muscle and tissue underneath with any semblance of eyes or a nose gone purely rotted and indented into the clear unmistakable shape of a hand. The degraded form upon properly seeing the Inquisition forces proved to not be any slower than a regular human, it pelted itself towards the group loping in its run as it came, it made no noise apart from a humming noise... It sounded like some kind of tune although where the tune was coming from as the things mouth had rotted away was unknown.
However the sudden burst of movement became apparant to all parties, the humming tune audible to everyone as the thing now tripped all motion detection gear in the assembled parties sensors.
Black Sail was many things, abundantly merciful was not one of them. Alison wasn't in a particularly giving mood to begin with, and when she saw the man's face rotted, and he (it?) began running toward the Annoliddans, she not-so-solemnly decided that she'd seen enough zombie movies to know where this was going and, no, she wasn't down to do that.
A burst of automatic weapons fire sounded from the assembled Black Sail force, a quick burst of fire from two seperate people, aimed at dropping the man.
What little patience Black Sail had for talking things through had evidently expired.
"Hoooooooly--!" yelped one of the Explorers, stealth totally forgotten now as they beheld the ghastly thing moving.
"Take it down, fire!" the squad leader snapped, and the Free Worlders opened up. Rifles snapped as they sent their shots down range, the Explorers wielding them leading the monster slightly as they emptied their mags. Sharp, short bursts were the rule of these troopers, tracers streaking into the thing from rifles both suppressed and not.
And then there was the KIDSS troopers. The Free Worlds power armor soldiers made a short sharp movement almost as one and raised their machine guns, aiming and opening fire with a snarling roar instead of sharp bursts. Spent casings dropped from their weapons like a metal rain, their shots veritably filling the air in the direction the beastly thing was, tracking it with slow, purposeful movements and not slowing their firing until their ammo boxes ran dry and the barrels glowed.
The storm of bullets and weapons' fire tore through the creature like a hot knife through butter but failed to stop the walking corpse from its pursuit, or its song. the creature ignored the assault in all but appearance as more and more wounds burst forth from its increasingly thinner, more shredded frame. Neither the creature's pace nor song faltered. the song, what could only be described as an old backwater hymn, hummed from what was left of his throat as it ran towards its prey, now with exposed bones and spilled bullet filled organs trailing behind it as it closed the distance at an alarming pace.
Demoindt heaved a heavy sigh at the expenditure of ammunition. Not one to waste bullets, he strode forward to meet the corpse, an instrument of his recording and analyzing its strange song. He uploaded the data for further analysis to the corvette, while unholstering his shotgun with his other hand.
With the creature now squarely in front of him, Demoindt leveled the barrel to its head and delivered a 4-gauge blast to its skull. Using the recoil to aim downwards, two more cannonades were delivered to the creature's knees. Even if the creature lived, Demoindt doubted any ligaments that remained could support its weight.
"Hold," Uyan whispered as an operator next to him brought up her submachine gun at the shambling figure.
"All units, hold your fire and maintain overwatch position," he texted the rest of the Unit. He switched on the helmet's camera and zoomed in on the zombie-like figure, recording visual and audio intel that will be delivered to the stealth corvette once they return.
"Let these guys do the work," the text continued as the darkness of the cargo bay lit up with heavy gunfire from the other factions.
“Cletus," Alison said, turning her attention away from the zombie and toward one of her companions. "That shit he's humming sound familiar to you?"
"No," He answered. "Why would it?"
"Dunno, you're a backwater redneck bible thumper type aren't you?"
"Fuck you,"
"Firefly, how we looking?"
The Subjugator suppressed a sigh, watching the scene unfold from above. Nothing about this boarding had been exactly textbook but she supposed that was to be expected where the BSO was involved.
Even so, the man was unsettling. Taking a deep breath, the Subjugator closed her eyes and listened to the hym, searching through both her memories, and those she could recall from the orb on Askandar for anything that might shed some light on the nature of the creature in front of them.
The creature dropped face down from the impacts at demoindt's feet, laying motionless on the ground, its song finally ended like the last of a dying breath as it finally stopped its pursuit, leaving the squads in silence and the thick fog which surrounded them.
"Clear!" one of the Explorers called out, putting a fresh mag into their weapon.
"What the hell..." murmured another.
The Free Worlders emerged from their cover and moved slowly into the open, approaching the Annolidians and the BSO slowly with their weapons ready, but not raised.
"Knew we weren't the only ones here, but weren't expecting to see you guys so soon." the team leader said, holding his rifle tightly.
"You lot alright?"
Alison rolled her eyes as the explorers approached. She'd read the reports not to mention spoken with Cletus and Jeb about what had gone down at Askandar. Free Worlds or some such nonsense they called themselves. Free from what exactly she wondered. There were plenty of democracies in Ancerious, plenty of anarchies, what exactly were they claiming to be free from?
"Ignore them," She said on their closed comm channel. "I've got better things to do than babysit farmers. They want to get themselves killed that's their perogative. Let's keep moving,"
Without a word to the Free Worlders, or indeed anyone else, the small force of Exiles began pushing deeper into the ship, following vague direction provided by the drones fanning throughout the ship they began heading toward (what they guessed) was the computer core.
While the BSO and FW open fired, the Davian's team simply sat back in defensive position and watched. Yet when the shooting was over they made their move and slowly pushed toward the Annoliddan squad, their supposed ally.
The Davian's medic however didn't forget to carefully pick up the test objects and carefully put them in an isolated device before joining her's teammate.
"Third parties units open fired again unknown target. Unknown target downed. Process with caution, we are joining Annoliddan Inquisition units. Watch out for third parties and possible hostiles. Remember people, we are here to investigate and would only help our ally the Annoliddan, third party units are not our concern."
The Puppeteer team chose to stay in the shadows, allowing the other parties to pass unannounced. "One-Actual, there are more unknown parties than first estimated, how copy?"
"Proceed forward. Ignore the other parties unless necessary."
"Affirmative." With that, the five members step forward, but continue to their objective instead of giving any care to the other teams in the room.
The silence was deafening. The fog only seemed to grow thicker, almost alive like a massive red amorphous beast. Moments passed before anything dared to break the tense atmosphere of the chamber. It was a crack, like that of bone, loud and sudden, the sudden echo hid its origin, but one person soon found out all too well. It was upon Demoindt in mere moments with unfounded speed, coiling around him with slick red intestines as it climbed up his form and over his head. Tattered claws clutched Demoindt's head with supernatural strength on bone thin limbs. It looked into his eyes with empty sockets, a dim red glow radiated from deep within its rotted skull. the corpse had played dead, and now its waiting was rewarded as it wrapped around its new victim almost protectively in its blood coated coils. It held Demoindt's head solid, its gaze unbreakable, forcing him to look into the very source of its decay instilling a very real, very possible, but still utterly unnatural fear of death into the experienced soldier's head. only now could Demoindt see the agony, the misery stuck upon what was left of the creature's face, it was just as much a victim as he is. The corpse's song rung out once more, echoing through the room. a deep, melodious hum that filled the air with a gospel of dread, grim and somber. ancient. The song, and its meaning, burrowed forcefully into Demoindt's mind.
"Holy shit!" was the yell again, the Free Worlders crying out in alarm. Weapons were raised, but nobody dared to fire lest they hit Demoindt. The talk on their closed comms was frantic and fast, and it was after a moment of panicked chatter that one of the KIDDS troopers headed forward, putting their MG on their back as they advanced to try and help the Annolidian.
"I would much prefer we kept the decibels to a minimum on this expedition. The ruckus we're causing could wake the de-" was what Demoindt had begun to say before the corpse sprung atop of him. Its claws and song both in equal measure began breaking through his helmet. A hiss of escaping air from Demoindt's mask was all the indication the rest of the Annoliddans needed. Carefully, and with only small arms, a few of them began taking shots at what few parts of the cadaver's body were not pressed against the artisan's. The others dared not get any closer, lest the creature could entangle multiple targets at once.
Demoindt himself worked frantically despite the sudden encumbrance. He tried desperately to break his weapon free enough from the living corpse's grasp that he could fire, while his other hand moved over the controls for the nearest harmonic resonator. Demoindt's efforts only lessened the resistance he could put up against the bloody monster as its claws finally broke through and made contact with the Annoliddan's bare flesh. Demoindt, understandably distracted, unwittingly made a telepathic connection, allowing the wallowing song to flow into his mind unimpeded.
These events and the connection lasted but a mere moment. Demoindt finally broke one arm free and activated the harmonic resonator. A true sense of understanding for the creature's plight, its sorrow and anguish at what it had become, began filling his mind.
"...pathetic."
At this word the resonator activated, a powerful sonic pulse ripped through the air at the pair. It tore to bits, not the corpse, but the final bindings of Demoindt's armor, allowing him to discard it and most of the creature. As he did, he began unloading his shotgun once again, now simply trying to push the bag of flesh and metal away as it continued to claw at his now exposed body. Demoindt activated the resonator a second time, now setting it to a frequency to tear away at organic flesh. His own arm got caught in the blast, visibly being torn apart skin, muscle, and sinew alike. Stopping but a moment to look down at his now cadaver of a hand, the high pitched, deafening ringing in Demoindt's ears did little to drown out the mournful chorus that pervaded his mind.
"Fuck. Fuck! Pathetic!" His sorrow for the creature quickly turned to anger at himself for falling into such an obvious trap. What remained of his underlying suit and gear began supplying water to his gills. Still, even as fresh oxygen entered his system, so too did the red mist.
Tevir, along with the rest of the Inquisition squad, kept their guns trained on the scene. Most aimed and fired at any bit of the corpse that remained moving, while a select few including Tevir aimed at their comrade...
The corpse, torn from its flesh and now only exposed bones on what was left of its torso, clawed its way forward like an animal. The physical state of the abomination would and should have made any movement at all from this point impossible, and yet it persisted. this creature, this entity, was not labored or inhibited by the limitations of a physical body. it felt no pain, it cared for no sound other than its own song, which still echoed unnaturally from its now nonexistent throat, and its empty sockets were locked on Demoindt as it drug itself toward him, ignoring his retaliation completely. even in this weakened state, it would not submit.
the fear the corpse had forced into Demoindt's thoughts had not waned, not even when he broke free. no, he still felt that hopeless dread, that fear of imminent death, and it only seemed to get closer, more intense, as the creature's song continued to echo in his mind, the words to the song soon became clear, almost upon demoindt's own tongue as though he were about to join..."Oh, death" the song said in his thoughts as he could only will himself not to join in, lest his subconscious action be to sing aloud. "Oh, Death...."
While the rest of Black Sail's forces forged ahead, leaving behind the others to sort out their own problems, Firefly had remained in place. She watched from atop the stacks of cargo containers as the exchange with the corpse continued. It attacked the Annoliddan, was subsequently shot, and continued to fight it's way forward while the others stood dumbfounded. No doubt they'd shoot it again, and the Subjugator supposed it would be about as effective as the last time.
She should have followed Alison, left the Annoliddans to sort themselves out... but she'd only survived Askandar because they'd treated her after her overdose. It wouldn't be fair, or polite, to leave them to die.
Slinging her rifle across her back the Subjugator descended from her perch, crossed the distance separating her from the corpse, and once she was standing over it let her cloaking field drop and shimmered back into the visible spectrum. She didn't bother with introduction or explanation. Instead, she pulled an incendiary off her bandolier, grabbed a fist full of the creatures hair, yanked back, and rammed the incendiary into it's mouth. She released it and stepped away. Bullets hadn't worked, so maybe burning the corpse would.
The resulting explosion should have scattered the bones, dispersed the red fog, and ended this nightmare, but none of that was necessarily true. the corpse held together, but had lost what was left of its limbs and half its lower jaw. it was finally stopped, but the corpse continued to glare its empty sockets at Demoindt as the fire engulfed it, through the roar of the flames it kept humming as it tried desperately to worm its way to him.
The KIDDS trooper, a man by the name of Dwight, made his move at this time. Bullets hadn't killed it. Fire hadn't killed it. The foot-long knife he had sheathed on his suit's left forearm probably wouldn't kill it, but like hell he wasn't going to try. Drawing the knife, he headed over to the thing and raised the blade high. Not even giving a single word to Firefly he slammed the monoblade down into it's neck, and if that didn't kill it, sever it's spine, he slammed the blade into the top of it's head, and did so again, and again, and again.
The other Free Worlders headed to help Demoindt, the team leader bringing his medics if the Annolidian needed them as the others took up positions to aim at the thing, and further ahead.
Unknown Location: Neutral Space
It had finally stopped, though not because it was finally dead, more so because it now had no means of moving further. the skull, jawless, completely stripped of any remaining tissues, still had its ominous red glow, and the black hand imprint across its face, which was now revealed to have fingers which had wrapped all the way around to the back of the skull, much too long to of been a human handprint. The skull appeared to be watching everyone in the room still, and yet, even in its completely harmless and defeated state, it almost mockingly continued its song.
Tevir cautiously approached Demoindt, who had fallen to his knees and had hands pressed to the sides of his head. The color continued to drain from Demoindt's complexion and his eyes flicked back and forth, sensing but not understanding the source of his fear. Death was a stagnant concept to the Annoliddans, and a sudden fear of it was multiplied by the lack understanding of why he feared it.
Tevir contacted his ship. "Grilia, have a team ready for exfil and quarantine, live target." He reached down and grasped the loose bits of Demoindt's, not daring to make a connection with him, and hoisted him to his feet. Tevir motioned for five of his squad to escort Demoindt back to the corvette until a full analysis could be done on his... condition.
"All units, switch to I/AO. Someone tune the resonators to cancel out that damn humming."
"Wait!" Shouted Demoindt. Before he was dragged out of the room, he uploaded an additional tonal frequency to the resonators, both the song and the singing tunes being eliminated, at least phonetically. He gave a wide smile, one that quickly faded as the singing in his head continued, the haunting memory persisting.
Tevir cursed his luck, having split his squad and a casualty this early in an operation.
"...Forward."
Something caught Demoindt's eye briefly among the fog. A massive, tall shape nearing almost twenty feet in height with what appeared to be tree branches, or antlers, reaching even further from what could only be the figure's head. It was only the briefest of moments that this form could be seen by him before it disappeared within the thick blood red fog, but one feature stood out to him most. It had three eyes, all staring right at him, the centermost eye, which rested on its head vertically and was noticeably larger than the other two, burned its image into his mind just as the corpse's song had. Before he could blink, gather his thoughts, the lumbering figure was gone, as though it was never there.
The walking corpse was no longer a threat, but whatever force drove it continued to drive it further, what little was left of the corpse seemed to shake, tremble, as though a vain attempt to gather itself. the Skull's eyeless sockets continued to glare at the soldiers around it, each one individually experiencing their own interpretation of fear from the sight. it kept humming as far as they could tell, but it could pose no further risk in this state. what remained of its body, what few shreds of clothing that weren't burned or in tatters, seemed almost civilian. the corpse was but one of the ship's passengers.
As the Annoliddan was dragged off Firefly stood silently over the corpse, watching as it seemed to glare at those that surrounded it. There were a great many things the Subjugator might have said in the moment. She could have cracked wise, or said something brave, arrogant, boisterous or a combination of the three...
But she didn't. She couldn't after all. Silently she reactivated her cloak, fading from most spectrums. With Alison pushing on the AI cores Firefly opted instead to head back to her perch atop the shipping containers, keeping watch over the other factions present and making sure their exit was secured.
Alison meanwhile continued to the AI core. By now, the drones had fanned out across the ship, providing a decent feed of what was going on around the Exiles. For now, it seemed clear. Whether that would last was up to debate.
"Move it out, keep close order a bit back from the Annoliddians." the team leader ordered. "No offense, guys. Just keeping an eye on the six." he said to the Inquisition team. The Free Worlders formed up in a semi-tight group, their weapons up and ready as they began to move. They kept their ears open and their fingers on triggers, ready to engage anything that assaulted them in one hell of a hurry if they had to.
They all were unnerved by what'd happened for sure, and not a few had been stared at by that... thing. Needless to say they didn't share what they feared most, keeping silent and moving on with the rest of their men.
As the drones fanned out down corridors and into rooms it became apparant that whatever was happening was simply not natural. No movement was triggered on the drones sensors as they made through fog filled hallways, unable to pierce some of them with even the most powerful of their small sensors. IR signals turned up only trace levels of heat, usually from background systems of the liner which even then should have been running far hotter. Sounds were a plenty and the occasional blip on life signs sensors appeared before rapidly dissapearing again, only fog being left behind.
Every now and again a drone would go dark, there was no definitive place or time for their deaths just like they had sucumbed to something, whether that was more of the walking corpses or extreme cold the Subjugator could not tell. But one thing that did show on the drone sensors was the all pervasive humming tune.
The ship otherwise seemed in fine condition, there was no damage to any bulkheads or corridors as the forces began to move. Door pads worked perfectly, bulkheads slid back like they were supposed to and data ports seemed to hum with at least some mediocum of power. Only the lights did not function, although from the fog density it was likely that they would have made no difference at all anyway.
The situation was getting stranger by the second as Bebop reported the loss of a few of the drones as well as the ever-present humming. Alison was beginning to suspect there were forces at play here outside of what she, or indeed anyone in the Organization, would consider 'normal'.
What that meant was up in the air. There were reports of all manner of strangeness in this new galaxy, and she knew not what... brand of strangeness this might be. Psionics? Magic? A flying spaghetti space monster?
One thing was certain: She didn't like this.
Arriving at the AI Core Bebop went to work on unlocking the door and then downloading the ship's logs.
"Gotsa a bad feelin' 'bout this," Cletus commented. "My throat gunna get cut again?"
"Shut up Cletus," Alison said with a sigh. "Once we pull the data let's take a quick look through it for any survivors. If there's none we're heading out and fragging this ship. Probably worth more as scrap anyway,"
"What about the others?" Jeb interrupted.
"Fuck 'em," Alison answered. "Except the Inquisition I guess. But fuck the rest of them,"
Back in the hangar, the red fog only seemed to be getting thicker, obscuring the area's surroundings almost completely. despite their initial encounter, all was calm. peaceful. before the humming started once more. from all around the chamber, deep within the fog. hundreds of voices in unison, humming that same grim hymn. one by one, forms started appearing from within the fog, dozens, if not hundreds.
While the teams had been distracted by the one threat, they successfully ignored the numerous others moving through the fog. surrounding them. too many.
"Get out of there! hurry!"
A voice broke through the song over the ship's P.A. system. it was a young girl. as she spoke, the main hangar doors opened leading to the rest of the ship, simultaneously clearing some of the fog which obscured the horde of monsters that surrouned the room. all of them were once the ship's passengers, all of them with the same rotted away handprint exposing their skulls, and all of them with their empty sockets focusing on their previously trapped prey while they hummed their ominous tune.
The sound of other doors through the ship opening and closing could be heard.
"I can only keep the doors open so long before the rest come! please, Ive made a path for you! hurry!" she cried into the speakers. she could only be on the bridge of the ship to have this kind of control over the vessel. the only possible safe place was now made clear to the soldiers. their time was thin, their chances of surviving the horde slimmer the longer they hesitate.
"Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" Dwight swore, raising his LMG before someone else tapped his shoulder plate.
"We gotta friggin' go!" shouted the other Explorer, pointing to where the hanger doors were now open. The rest of the Free Worlds troopers were already making their way towards them, a few men hurling grenades over their shoulders into the horde as they went. Dwight fired off a burst from his machine gun into the horde as he backed up, turning as he let the finger off the trigger and made for the door. There was just no time, and if the Annolidians were following or leading, great, but they weren't going to stop.
Alison's annoyance over the entire situation was only growing the longer things went on. First, they gett to the AI Core only to quickly discover it had been cut off from the rest of the ship, making it functionally useless (what a waste of time). The logs were less than helpful indicating only that everything was fine right up until it wasn't with little to no indication of why it suddenly wasn't. And as if all that wasn't bad enough the door had locked behind them and the singing (which had been annoying the first time and was now trending very quickly toward 'infuriating') had started up again.
The rhytmic tapping of her armored finger against the trigger guard rapidly increased in tempo, making her annoyance clear to the other members of her team as they waited for further instructions. The voice over the PA system only served to push the redhead over the edge and with a muttered curse she finally picked up her communicator and keyed in to the open channel.
"Hey dipshit!" She shouted into the reciever. "While you were busy opening doors for the fuck-ups in the cargo bay you locked us in the fucking AI Core. You want to do us all a favor and open the fucking door?"
Tevir's squad wasted no time once the "horde" revealed itself. Laser fire streaked through the fog, followed quickly by incendiary rounds. Regardless of the longevity of these creatures, it would be hard for them to move and attack as piles of ashes. To increase his squad's efficiency, one Squire revealed a gift he acquired from the Proxian Empire on Askandar: three small disks of Imp-wire traps were thrown into the mix. Razor-sharp strands of metal wire spun out and began ripping into the shambling bodies. It wasn't a permanent defense however...
"Go, go! Through the opening!" The Annoliddan squad quickly followed behind their human comrades. Once again the plan had changed, and while Tevir could not shake the hunch this entire operation was a trap, options and alternatives were in short supply.
The time spent skirting around everyone could have been better spent plotting a direct course to the servers and datacore, but now they were blocked off by several doors and another group had beat them to the objective anyways. It was a moot point now, and the Puppeteer team present had much more immediate things to worry about. "Uh, One-Actual, we've got... a lot of contacts--"
"Shut the fuck up and make way for that door, Two-One, or we're ditching you." Three invisible figures glided by the five-man team as the voice and his partners made way for the opened door.
Two-One blinks at the sudden outburst. It was against protocol to explode like that, even to a subordinate. The situation, even if not under any sort of remote control, did not warrent the emotional break that the team leader had heard from the Hunter-Killer team's leader. But even then, he was not going to question his logic or course of action. "Two-All, make for the door. Two-three, Two-four, take up the rear."
Green lights blinked as everyone confirmed they recieved their orders. The two Puppeteers backpedaled with their repeaters aimed at the horde as a precautonary measure as the other three made their way forward to the doorway, following the Free Worlds and Annoliddan troops through the hanger doors.
The chorus was almost deafening, that same archaic, grimm tune that seemed to taunt the teams as they fled. coming from more than one source, the song seemed to vibrate the room. the horde, like their predecessor, seemed almost completely unphased by the counter assault launched at them. in fact, the children in the crowd seemed to be nimbly ducking through the adult corpses' legs and gathering parts lost in the frackas, and reassembling their deceased family members, even the original corpse was soon finding its limbs returning to its burned, skeletal frame, despite the lack of the top of its skull, so that it might join in the undead pursuit with the others.
Each and every one of the corpses' empty eye sockets, however, were perfectly affixed to their prey, every last one, an ominous red glow burned deep within their skulls. their glares seemed to draw the soldiers' attention, as though some unseen force demanded they gaze deep into their seemingly empty gaze, where only fear and madness would await them. should they fall victim to this magnetic force, the horde would and could easily engulf them all. judging by the monsters' relatively slow pace, this was their plan, as the davians seemed all too willing to demonstrate, unfortunately. within seconds, their entire team had disappeared into the crowd, their death cries filling the comms system the others had been using before being replaced by the same horrific tune which continued to torment the survivors.
"Please! hurry!" the young girl cried into the P.A. system. "please!"
"We're not stopping!" shouted one of the Explorers. "Anybody who falls, PA boys get 'em!" added the team leader pounding along and following the path that the young girl was opening for them. The Free Worlders weren't stopping for anything and anyone but their own, soldiers being grabbed and taken up by their power armor soldiers when someone fell or tripped. No weapons were fired by the Explorer team as they ran, as one they would hit the Annolidians and two, there was just no time.
"How far do we have to fragging go?!" gasped out one of the team, still running like grim death.
"Too far perhaps," Responded Tevir as the Annoliddans began catching up with the Free Worlders. Their larger size was counteracted by their innate agility and timing, using every angle on the floors and walls to keep pace with everyone else. Whenever an explorer fell too far behind, one of Tevir's men would give them a less than gentle shove forward and mental stabilizing to keep them going.
The Annoliddan commander then checked his com-link for functionality. "Grilia, if you can still reach me, run a trace on the P.A.'s signal source. See if you can find where our little friend is."
In passing, the halls were mostly left alone. the events which unfolded before the teams had arrived apparently happened without struggle as most everything on the ship was intact. doors were sealed as the teams reached them, the obvious reason why being the skull-faced abominations on the other side of the glass from the staff quarters watching them flee, but clearly their new ally was trying to help guide them to her location, the safest way possible. as the they ran, however, horrific visions filled the fog. family members left behind, left to the same fate as the passengers before them, as realistic as though they were actually there. horrific demons rushing from the opposite directions only to disappear before contact, the horde rushing down the hallway and manifesting from thin air only to disappear like the apparitions before them. it would only strengthen their resolve to reach safety.
Each soldier experienced something different, some personal assault to their psyche, some entity in the fog which seemed to almost perfectly manifest as their current greatest fears, save for one thing. at the end of their current hall, they witnessed a single lifeless corpse laid with its back against the wall, the life almost completely drained from it leaving it a shriveled husk well beyond a state of decay for something that could only be a few days old. the corpse wasnt totally human either despite initial interpretations, rather it had seemingly canine features with pointed ears and large canine-like incisors in place of what should have been human molars which glimmered in what appeared to be a wide grin, directed straight at the soldiers as though in mid hysterical laughter. in its claw-like hand it wielded a curved blade of unknown origin, in another it held a handful of hair. behind it, in crimson red, was what resembled a massive hand painted cross mixed with an almost reptilian or cat-like eye. even simply glimpsing at this symbol forced them to avert their gaze from some unknown power, it was a feeling as though being stared down upon by a superior officer, or an angry parent. as they were forced the run closer, the eye's gaze alone sent a single surging sensation of dread over each of them. it felt as though running straight into the jaws of a predator, a sensation that was almost forcing them to freeze in their tracks the closer they got, never before had these hardened soldiers felt more like weak children, just by being in this eye's presence. the distant chorus, however, gave more than enough motivation to fight their own bodies and continue on.
Allison, meanwhile, had received no further contact from the young woman, only interference from the Davian comms as they slowly died and joined the undead chorus. perhaps the girl had been unaware they were even there, as they had hastily separated from the initial groups to go their own way, but one thing was for certain, the only help they would get at the moment was their own.
"Jesus fuck," Alison muttered. "Even when they're dying the Davians manage to find a way to fuck over their allies. This is ri-goddamn-diculous. Get the fucking door open and find me a route to the nearest airlock. Unless someone has a compelling reason not to I say we ditch this rust bucket, nuke it, and call it a fucking day,"
There were no immediate challenges to the Exile's command, only several prolonged minutes of silence as the death squad set to work on the door with thermal cutters and Bebop went about downloading and examining ship schematics from the AI Core to find the quickest route out.
Then, Cletus raised a hand.
"What is it?" Alison said with a sigh.
"Yeah boss uh..." Cletus said. "Where'd Firefly go?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Firefly had abandoned her post. Order or no, the Subjugator wasn't keen to test her cloaking systems against a... well... zombie horde (for lack of a better term) that seemed to be very stubborn when asked politely if they could die now.
She trailed invisibly behind the others, keeping just ahead of the Davians bringing up the rear. After all, she figured she need not move faster than the horde. If she moved faster than the Davians she ought to be fine. Best to conserve her energy while she could.
Which as it turned out wasn't long. The Davians died shortly after the sprint had begun, now leaving the Subjugator solidly at the rear of the retreating soldiers... formation.
Although calling it a formation was being a bit generous more of a blob really.
She still wasn't keen to test out the effectiveness of her cloak on a zombie horde and decided it best to pick up the pace and catch up with the others. She did her best to ignore the terror around her. She was a Subjugator after all and blocking out distractions to focus on an objective was nothing new...
It was working at first, then they came across the wolf-thing.
She didn't like the Wolf-Thing. She didn't like its face. She didn't like its state of decay. She didn't like its scythe. None of the other passengers had scythes. Why did this one?
Trap. She was sure of it.
With a flick of her eyes she let a dose of combat stimulants flood her system. She dodged around the rearmost of the blob and dropped to one knee, shouldering the anti-material rifle and sighting in the wolf-thing.
With the soldiers ahead of her moving slower it was easier to aim between them and with a deafening crack in the confined space the rifle fired, launching it's payload toward the head of the wolf-thing.
Zombies. Nightmares. And then a wolf-headed freak with the most sinister blade imaginable. This reminded Fyarael too much of her previous assignment. Of that god-damned rock that killed her the first time. Of the callous god that had ordered her presence to begin with, and the even less appealing gods that she had endured in death.
The straw that broke the camel's back was the roar of Firefly's anti-material rifle and the unistakable whistle of the massive kinetic projectile sailing past everyone. With a desperate, terrified cry audible only to her team members, the young Puppeteer raised her plasma pistol and opened fire on the creature, emptying plasma bolt after plasma bolt into it.
"Two-Five, cease fire, cease fire!" Two-One calls out while swiftly moving to intervene, dragging the young Puppeteer out of her stupor but too late to stop her first shots. The other three Puppeteer soldiers trained their rifles at the creature ahead, unsure of what to do. Protocol dictated that they learn more of their foe before engaging it, but that required critical time that was not available. So, realistically, there was only one option to take.
The eight Puppeteers press on. They may die if they move onwards, but they will definitely die if they stop now.
Annoliddan memory was a long one. Passing memories from one generation to the next since the civilization started had great benefits... and a few terrible setbacks.
As the ramshackle bunch of squads approached this point, each among the Annoliddans were buffeted by similar, yet distorted horrors of the same memories: Lurking, dark creatures who had no business swimming amongst the horde, howling sounds akin to a tortured sapient ringing in their ears, and the occasional sight of a being with glowing amber eyes and several limbs haunted their perception as they advanced.
Upon reaching the hallway with the canine-headed undead and his "seal" for lack of a better word, the Annoliddans formed two tight groups and decelerated like a herd of animals knowingly lining up for the slaughterhouse. An ancient, primal fear arose at the sight of the occult markings, one that not even Tevir could seem to grasp.
Yet their was another emotion rising in their ranks, for with instinctive fear came an instinctive response. Clustered as they were and communicating telepathically with one another, their collective resolve called to stand and fight rather than backing away. As Firefly's shot split the air, Tevir called out to the other group. "Hold here! Let nothing get through!" Even as he yelled, his group surged forward, a new level of determination in each of them; as the fear took hold as they stared down the markings and creature before them, anger began to rise. Anger, because this was the same power that killed all those on this ship; anger, for making the Annoliddans feel terrors they didn't know existed; anger, because this shriveled corpse was in their way.
Even as Tevir's group unleashed all manner of munitions at the creature, the other Annoliddan group did likewise at the horde behind them. Streaks of red light blazed across the handprinted heads of the ex-passengers as controlled bursts of incendiary rounds exploded in the mass of shambling bodies. Two Annoliddans had taken note of the kinetic round's origin behind them, and focused on keeping the mass off of its source, Firefly.
The Free Worlders ran on grimly, their boots pounding on the floor as they fired into the horde behind them, dumping mags and ammo boxes into mass of undead. They didn't stop when they saw the strange thing, even as visions of death and destruction rampaged through their minds. The horrors of Remnant Fleet Gorgon and worse haunted them relentlessly, but like when fighting the Remnant Fleet they could not stop.
Tracers howled and spat alongside grenades and other explosives hurled by the troopers as they ran onwards, rifles dropped to hang on their slings when they ran dry of ammo to favor sidearms. Those with belt fed weapons like Dwight fired on and on until their barrels threatened to melt, pausing then only to run on until they were able to fire behind them again. They had to run, they had to find safety, they would not stop until either they had refuge or they were all dead. There was no in-between.
The corpse was not spared the frightened soldiers' barrage as it was pelted with weapons fire, quickly rendering the remains to mere shreds and dust, and revealing it to be just a husk, no life or un-life resided in it to warrant the violent reaction. the corpses which made their ways through the halls to their impending victims, however, were all too willing to give the soldiers the reaction they anticipated from their lifeless victim, their song was almost joyous. the paranoia, meanwhile, sunk in even further as glimpses of impending attacks and unspoken horrors manifested in the corners of the soldiers' eyes, brief, but maddening glimpses.
The combination of her own training as well as the cocktail of narcotics now coursing through her veins kept the Subjugator calm despite the encroaching horde. The animal part of her screamed at her to run, or hide, or do something, but the intelligent part knew she had to wait until the hail of gunfire died down before she could continue forward.
Whatever trap there may have been was, in all likelihood, thoroughly destroyed now and so the Subjugator rose from her crouch and pressed forward. As she finally pushed herself passed the corpse she spared a glance for the symbol scrawled on the wall behind it... or what remained after stray shots had made their mark.
A shiver travelled down her spine and she contemplated explosives to wipe the symbol out...
But high explosives and space ships rarely mixed well.
She tore her glance away and continued up the corridor, pausing once past the symbol to let some of the others move passed her. It would be easier to go unnoticed at the rear of the blob than its head.
Do not stop. Do not stop. Do not stop.
This was the mantra of the Explorer team as they kept going, men were getting out of breath as those that'd been borne along by the PA troopers were let down, the breathless troops taking their spots as the PA pounded on, on, on. No more ammunition was expended as they weren't able to afford wasting any more, but all the same the Free Worlders were beginning to get desperate. Where were they going... how much farther did they have to go...?
"HEY!" one of the troopers shouted out, acting on her desperation as she didn't know if the voice would or could hear her-- but she shouted regardless. "Where the frak are we going?! Where are you leading us?!"
"Go! Go! Don't stop, don't look back, just run!" the voice of One-Actual boomed on the Puppeteer comms network.
"What about the mission?!" Two-One cries out. Protocol has gone out the window at this point, and all that mattered was to somehow find a way out of this madhouse.
"Damn the mission! We're looking at at least a localized reality warping occurrence! We're not fucking equipped for this shit, our job was to get in, recon, and get out! We've done the recon so we're getting the hell out!" One-Actual fires back, silencing the confused Team Two's leader.
Some of the Annoliddans could not handle the onslaught of mental torment flung at them and simply decelerated, letting themselves be consumed by the mob behind the others. One still had the (in)sanity to detonate her armor's shielding and overload weapons as the horde closed in, releasing a small concussive blast, but with next to no avail. Tevir and the others joined with their fellow boarding parties and surged forward.
Vesta Prime
IRS Peacekeeping Zone under AGA Mandate
------------------------------------------------------
Just a few weeks ago, Vesta Prime was like other Auraxii worlds after the Confederation collapsed; economically ruined and devastated from the numerous civil wars erupting between large noble families vying for control over precious resources and the remaining civilian population needed to man their factories and armies. What was once a gleaming meritocratic society with martial honour devolved into slavery and oppression of the lower classes as the nobles and warlords pressed their own people in labour camps and forced conscription. One part out of desperation to survive and keep order, another part to fulfil personal ambitions at obtaining power.
AGA forces had arrived a few days after the collapse to provide aid and restore peace in the troubled areas. After failed attempts to peacekeep the entirety of former Auraxii space with complications arising from Varren rebels, Auraxii remenants and APP raiding parties, the AGA re-consolidated their peacekeeping forces to three systems, Vesta being one of them. What was previously an Union force was soon joined in by other AGA forces; Carnaith, RSC and IRS elements joined the fray. The IRS peacekeeping forces were primarily stationed in Vesta and as such, the system was unofficially entrusted to them on behalf of the AGA. The mission that was initially established was simple; land, set up safe zones and distribute aid.
However when the IRS convoys arrived above orbit it was clear things in Vesta was more complex than it seemed. With the civil wars raging on, there was no way the IRS could simply land and give aid. Past human history had shown that providing aid with no means to defend them from predatory parties resulted in failure. The warring parties must be dismantled first.
A small battle between splintered Auraxii naval fleets and IRS ships defending their convoy soon began. The Auraxii found themselves hard pressed to focus on the battle while they were shooting each other. Suffering slight losses, the IRS ships made an aggressive push to steamroll the Auraxii fleets in one clean swoop. Frigates streaked and strafed through their lines with anti-ship torpedos, Temujin destroyers sniped them one by one while battleships and cruisers formed a bulkhead that attacked them at the front. Soon enough the system was clear of enemy space forces. The Battle of Vesta, as it was called, ended in victory and the IRS was free to deploy on Vesta Prime, the main population center of the system, how they see fit.
One entire day, 24 whole hours, was spent with no actions from the IRS fleet that hung above. Warlords and noble families continued their bloody carnage for personal pursuits while the common Auraxii anguished as usual. The IRS was observing the situation of the planet closely, using satellite visuals and tapping into the local communications network to form a picture of the current geopolitical factions at play and tracking their military movements. Auraxii language was also analysed and then compiled into downloadable digital programming packets for Linguistic Induction machines to allow IRS personnel command of the local tongue rather than simply relying on translators.
After that one day was over, the IRS began Operation Haven in earnest. Pezokh-class Baseships, escorted by dropships and Paladin Strikefighters, landed at Nezaria Plains, an area of empty tundra untouched from war nearby some small towns and cities. The population there had not been conquered by the major Auraxii powers and had been spared the worst of the civil war though they were affected economically as trade was suddenly cut off and the changes in atmospheric conditions from the pollution of war spoiled crop harvests and contaminated groundwater reserves. The civil war was still dangerously near as Auraxii factions steadily approach Nezaria to open up new war fronts and exploit new sources of manpower.
The IRS wasted no time in establishing a base of operations. Baseships unloaded multiple brigades of 5000 troops each all of them with their own tanks, logistic and engineering vehicles, artillery and more. Engineers and construction ships went to work erecting refugee centers around the Baseships built from prefrabricated habitat modules and other facilities made from retooled shipping containers as well as establishing a power grid and a water supply system. Walls, fences and barriers were next to be set up along with a network of turrets for base defence. In just half a day, Nezaria soon had a fortress of its own with what was aptly called as 'Fort Nezaria'. IRS planes soon dropped leaflets and hacked into public communication networks to announce the opening of Fort Nezaria to the local Auraxiis, a safe haven where food, clean water, housing and heaters for the winter were all ample in supply and where they would be protected from the war. The Nezarian Auraxiis were presented with a choice; leave behind their homes to survive or stay and perish with their pride. Over the next few days, millions made the trek to the Fort where they were throroughly screened for weapons and dangerous materials before they were settled in their bunks. There was no home a single family could call theirs anymore now that a bunk was shared with at least three other families but after weeks of constant poverty, starvation and malnutrition they could not care less.
The uprooting of the Nezarians from their traditional lands had a secondary sociopolitical effect. The small feudal-like nobles that governed the local towns had already been humbled by the economic crisis and now that they have been reduced to refugees their power has all been effectively dismantled. Creeping influence of IRS propaganda broadcasts (which were actually meant for IRS soldiers stationed there) subtly introduced them to the IRS's egalitarian society and ideology. New ranks of aspirant leaders soon began discussing concepts of a new Auraxii state, one that was a socialist-esque welfare state that distributes resources more fairly and promotes equality rather than the rigid divides of the aristocracy they previously knew. A week of living in Fort Nezaria effectively created a new culture, one that emphasised the community as the distributor of resources rather than the Houses as dispensaries of mere surplus.
The catalyst for the transition from a new culture to a new government came when the other Auraxii forces finally reached the region and brought the civil war with them. Troops belonging to different Houses and warlord bands occupied the small towns and shelled the regional capital city that was heavily contested between the various factions. Farms and granaries were plundered for the last bits of crop. Street fighting was brutal and civilians were either caught in the cross fire or abducted to be enslaved. Fort Nezaria also came under attack, the IRS base seen as a transgression on their sacred soil. The IRS soldiers put up a strong fight with their heavily entrenched positions and large numbers of base turrets to repel attacks. Strikefighters went on search and destroy missions to take out Auraxii armored columns and painted major staging areas for artillery firebases based within the Fort. Air missions were also sent out to stop the Auraxiis from taking away the Nezarian civilians but ultimately it proved futile as commanders were unwilling to order air strikes on the slave transports and risk their lives, nor was the IRS in a position to deploy forces in the cities and evacuate them with the heavy concentration of Auraxii forces. Footage of the Nezarians' fates angered the refugees in Fort Nezaria and galvanised the sense of martial honour characteristic of the Auxarii before their collapse within them. Between the AGA, who were their enemies in 2AW, and their own people who now enslave their own kin, the Nezarian Auraxiis made their choice. The New Vesta Social Unity (NVSU, also known as Navsu) Party was formed and they petitioned the IRS to assist them in building a new army and government and reunite the fragmented planet.
After much consideration, the IRS agreed and the refugees soon turned themselves into a standing army equipped and trained by IRS personnel. Navsu forces stormed the regional capital as rivalling Auraxii warbands battled one another for control, taking them by surprise. The IRS provided air support with bombing runs destroying the bulk of the warbands' forces leaving the Navsu guerillas to mop up the survivors. The Auraxii soon withdrew, badly battered from the surprise attack. With much confidence, the Navsu had recaptured their homelands but they were not content to stop. With IRS dropships they soon invaded other regions, hitting key Auraxii camps, supply convoys and logistical depots in precision strikes as well as spreading propaganda of their cause to ignite slave rebellions before moving in with their own forces. Under the cover of IRS air, artillery and logistical support, Navsu steadily marched across the planet, destroying one warband after another and liberating civilians oppressed under the nobles and warlords. Their armies grew to the billions with the promise of ample food (readily supplied by the IRS's humanitarian services) and freedom from the slave camps. Soon enough, the last Auraxii remnant stronghold fell as Navsu forces broke through the planetary capital and captured it. Vesta Prime was reunited, the civil war was over and the Navsu Party slowly restructured itself into a proper planetary government with the administrative assistance of IRS advisors.
Today, Vesta Prime is rapidly recovering as the IRS continued to stay at the request of their Navsu allies to assist with the restoration of their damaged infrastructure. At discounted rates, huge amounts of loans were provided to purchase materials and construction services from the IRS's state owned firms who then come in and employ the Auraxii population creating jobs and keeping unemployment low. The sights of new apartment blocks and industrial estates springing up from the scaffold gates and farmlands returning to their lush seas of green and gold inspired hope in the Vesta Prime's Auraxii people to a new brighter future, and confidence to the IRS that their peacekeeping methodology was an astounding success. It was a method that the IRS would soon replicate on other planets in the Vesta system and perhaps one day, create a new pro-AGA transgalatic Auraxii government though that remains to be discussed with other AGA nations...
Unknown Location: Neutral Space
As the Davian creature now seemed to indicate something was nearby the mist seemed to thicken as they entered the large cargo moving room, the various corridors all having led from the airlocks to this huge open space. The mist was thick here, with the darkness and mist both keeping visibility at a very short distance. Inside the room were large stacks, all boxes of industrial size and make to contain supplies or passenger cargo. Some seemed to have fallen over, creating deadends in the jungle of boxes which in some places were stacked up to the very roof of the hold, the top boxes lost in the darkness.
It was in an open loading area where the first sign of movement came from, it appeared to be the outline of a human seemingly moving across the area albeit a little slowly. The thick mist and the darkness obscured any detail of the person and the prescence of the squads now moving in on the area seemed to grab their attention. The silouette of the human now slowly walking towards the squads.
"Tracking target, forward ten degrees west," Two-One calls out upon spotting the enigmatic presence in the new holding bay they had just entered. "Do not engage or approach, I repeat, do not engage or approach. Two-All, confirm if target is anomalous."
The members of the five-man team begin testing their sensors on the mysterious individual before them. Infrared, radioactive, and psionic. While proceeding, the five crouch in their positions by the door, with the three still-cloaked Puppeteers covering the hall behind them.
The subjugator, ahead of the main Exile force marked the human, it's silhoutte highlighting on the boarding party's HUDs. She kept her cloak up for the time being, moving away from the human and taking to high ground. If she could see him, others would too... and some of them could be hostiles. She needed to be prepared if the bullets started flying...
Alison, for her part, was decidedly less concerned about hostiles. Profiles made it seem unlikely either the Davians or the Free Worlders would start shit, and if the two unknowns wanted to have a go she supposed she could count on the Annoliddans at least to back her up.
So, when the human was highlighted by Firefly, she decided that she'd had quite enough of waiting on scans and threat assessments when she'd been hunting the System with the Echoes. Rather than wait on any scans, the Exiles emerged from the red mist, their guns trained on the lone form shambling across the hangar.
Only Alison kept her weapon down, whistling to grab the attention of the loner.
"Over here, boy!" Cletus added, as though the whistle hadn't been obvious enough.
The Corpsmen had held their position while the drone gave the main hold a look, scanning the area for a minute or two before zipping right back to the Explorer that'd deployed it. Following that they moved into the room with their weapons ready, spreading out slightly in case they were attacked. When they spotted the BSO and whatever other units were near them the troopers gave a start but they shifted their attention to the form now moving towards them.
Orders were silently given over closed helmet radios, and the Explorers moved to either kneel and aim, or move to cover among the crates and boxes. The KIDSS troopers readied their machine guns and aimed, ready to advance and lay down an unholy level of fire when and if it was needed. Another order was given by the team leader, and the Explorer nearest to the figure raised their scanner towards the figure and turned it on. There wasn't anything in particular that the Explorer was looking for, a wide-spectrum scan, but if there was anything they could learn about who this was while the unknowns with the... rough attitude spoke to them, that was all the more they knew.
Fear... heart beat rising... panic... trying to flee.... Those were probably the feeling of the Davian test subject which exposed to the mysterious mist, or whatever nearby. Of course the Davian squad would notice their creature's behavior and documented it before the medic walked out and retrieved the box with the creature within. She also didn't forget to take some samples of the mist. Then the team moved forward slowly and carefully.
A short while later they entered the place where the other squad staying. Then they saw that human silhouette moving toward the seemingly BSO unit. The team, still staying behind the foreign units, quickly found a favorable defensive position and formed themselves into defensive stand while not forgot to scan the moving creature with any kind of scanner they carried. As usual the team formed themselves so that they would not be surprise by attacks from any angles and would not be wipe out by a single heavy attack.
"Get the bots to look around while keeping that bird above us."
"Ro. comrade"
The Davian tiny bots which accompanied the team began to move out and began to scan everything around including terrain, stuff, ... the foreign units however would not be scan to avoid possible misunderstanding.
Meanwhile a single encrypted message using the same communication which the Davian usual used to contact with the Annoliddan was sent toward them. The message was simple: "Hail honored Annoliddan. Davian unit request co-operation with you in this joined investigation."
The Annoliddan complement stopped upon sighting a form amongst the cargo. Tevir gave signal for the squad to hold position and observe. "Reading you clearly, copy and out." He responded over helmet comms to the Davians. Switching back to an open channel, he alerted all others who had yet to see the form, pinging its location on sensors. "Target to front, analyzing."
Tevir gave a silent signal to Demoindt to test the humanoid form. The hand signal command was a rather broad one, simply asking that he probe at what was ahead of them. Seeing no support from sensors or other readings, Demoindt simply produced a multiwrench from his belt and flung it at the shambling form.
The throw was on point for the artisan's purposes, aimed to fly just barely past the humanoid's head, create a small breeze in the air, and clang against the metal floor past the creature.
As the wrench flew, Tevir gave a queer look behind his helmet visor back at Demoindt, who simply shrugged in response.
The man turned at the wrench being thrown from the Annolidians seemingly ignoring the other shoutings and talking. He moved fairly quickly as the fog began to recede.
It quickly became clear this was not going to be a regular boarding, the horror of the sight was disturbing.
The mans head and face were totally rotted, skin was hanging from neucrotic muscle and tissue underneath with any semblance of eyes or a nose gone purely rotted and indented into the clear unmistakable shape of a hand. The degraded form upon properly seeing the Inquisition forces proved to not be any slower than a regular human, it pelted itself towards the group loping in its run as it came, it made no noise apart from a humming noise... It sounded like some kind of tune although where the tune was coming from as the things mouth had rotted away was unknown.
However the sudden burst of movement became apparant to all parties, the humming tune audible to everyone as the thing now tripped all motion detection gear in the assembled parties sensors.
Black Sail was many things, abundantly merciful was not one of them. Alison wasn't in a particularly giving mood to begin with, and when she saw the man's face rotted, and he (it?) began running toward the Annoliddans, she not-so-solemnly decided that she'd seen enough zombie movies to know where this was going and, no, she wasn't down to do that.
A burst of automatic weapons fire sounded from the assembled Black Sail force, a quick burst of fire from two seperate people, aimed at dropping the man.
What little patience Black Sail had for talking things through had evidently expired.
"Hoooooooly--!" yelped one of the Explorers, stealth totally forgotten now as they beheld the ghastly thing moving.
"Take it down, fire!" the squad leader snapped, and the Free Worlders opened up. Rifles snapped as they sent their shots down range, the Explorers wielding them leading the monster slightly as they emptied their mags. Sharp, short bursts were the rule of these troopers, tracers streaking into the thing from rifles both suppressed and not.
And then there was the KIDSS troopers. The Free Worlds power armor soldiers made a short sharp movement almost as one and raised their machine guns, aiming and opening fire with a snarling roar instead of sharp bursts. Spent casings dropped from their weapons like a metal rain, their shots veritably filling the air in the direction the beastly thing was, tracking it with slow, purposeful movements and not slowing their firing until their ammo boxes ran dry and the barrels glowed.
The storm of bullets and weapons' fire tore through the creature like a hot knife through butter but failed to stop the walking corpse from its pursuit, or its song. the creature ignored the assault in all but appearance as more and more wounds burst forth from its increasingly thinner, more shredded frame. Neither the creature's pace nor song faltered. the song, what could only be described as an old backwater hymn, hummed from what was left of his throat as it ran towards its prey, now with exposed bones and spilled bullet filled organs trailing behind it as it closed the distance at an alarming pace.
Demoindt heaved a heavy sigh at the expenditure of ammunition. Not one to waste bullets, he strode forward to meet the corpse, an instrument of his recording and analyzing its strange song. He uploaded the data for further analysis to the corvette, while unholstering his shotgun with his other hand.
With the creature now squarely in front of him, Demoindt leveled the barrel to its head and delivered a 4-gauge blast to its skull. Using the recoil to aim downwards, two more cannonades were delivered to the creature's knees. Even if the creature lived, Demoindt doubted any ligaments that remained could support its weight.
"Hold," Uyan whispered as an operator next to him brought up her submachine gun at the shambling figure.
"All units, hold your fire and maintain overwatch position," he texted the rest of the Unit. He switched on the helmet's camera and zoomed in on the zombie-like figure, recording visual and audio intel that will be delivered to the stealth corvette once they return.
"Let these guys do the work," the text continued as the darkness of the cargo bay lit up with heavy gunfire from the other factions.
“Cletus," Alison said, turning her attention away from the zombie and toward one of her companions. "That shit he's humming sound familiar to you?"
"No," He answered. "Why would it?"
"Dunno, you're a backwater redneck bible thumper type aren't you?"
"Fuck you,"
"Firefly, how we looking?"
The Subjugator suppressed a sigh, watching the scene unfold from above. Nothing about this boarding had been exactly textbook but she supposed that was to be expected where the BSO was involved.
Even so, the man was unsettling. Taking a deep breath, the Subjugator closed her eyes and listened to the hym, searching through both her memories, and those she could recall from the orb on Askandar for anything that might shed some light on the nature of the creature in front of them.
The creature dropped face down from the impacts at demoindt's feet, laying motionless on the ground, its song finally ended like the last of a dying breath as it finally stopped its pursuit, leaving the squads in silence and the thick fog which surrounded them.
"Clear!" one of the Explorers called out, putting a fresh mag into their weapon.
"What the hell..." murmured another.
The Free Worlders emerged from their cover and moved slowly into the open, approaching the Annolidians and the BSO slowly with their weapons ready, but not raised.
"Knew we weren't the only ones here, but weren't expecting to see you guys so soon." the team leader said, holding his rifle tightly.
"You lot alright?"
Alison rolled her eyes as the explorers approached. She'd read the reports not to mention spoken with Cletus and Jeb about what had gone down at Askandar. Free Worlds or some such nonsense they called themselves. Free from what exactly she wondered. There were plenty of democracies in Ancerious, plenty of anarchies, what exactly were they claiming to be free from?
"Ignore them," She said on their closed comm channel. "I've got better things to do than babysit farmers. They want to get themselves killed that's their perogative. Let's keep moving,"
Without a word to the Free Worlders, or indeed anyone else, the small force of Exiles began pushing deeper into the ship, following vague direction provided by the drones fanning throughout the ship they began heading toward (what they guessed) was the computer core.
While the BSO and FW open fired, the Davian's team simply sat back in defensive position and watched. Yet when the shooting was over they made their move and slowly pushed toward the Annoliddan squad, their supposed ally.
The Davian's medic however didn't forget to carefully pick up the test objects and carefully put them in an isolated device before joining her's teammate.
"Third parties units open fired again unknown target. Unknown target downed. Process with caution, we are joining Annoliddan Inquisition units. Watch out for third parties and possible hostiles. Remember people, we are here to investigate and would only help our ally the Annoliddan, third party units are not our concern."
The Puppeteer team chose to stay in the shadows, allowing the other parties to pass unannounced. "One-Actual, there are more unknown parties than first estimated, how copy?"
"Proceed forward. Ignore the other parties unless necessary."
"Affirmative." With that, the five members step forward, but continue to their objective instead of giving any care to the other teams in the room.
The silence was deafening. The fog only seemed to grow thicker, almost alive like a massive red amorphous beast. Moments passed before anything dared to break the tense atmosphere of the chamber. It was a crack, like that of bone, loud and sudden, the sudden echo hid its origin, but one person soon found out all too well. It was upon Demoindt in mere moments with unfounded speed, coiling around him with slick red intestines as it climbed up his form and over his head. Tattered claws clutched Demoindt's head with supernatural strength on bone thin limbs. It looked into his eyes with empty sockets, a dim red glow radiated from deep within its rotted skull. the corpse had played dead, and now its waiting was rewarded as it wrapped around its new victim almost protectively in its blood coated coils. It held Demoindt's head solid, its gaze unbreakable, forcing him to look into the very source of its decay instilling a very real, very possible, but still utterly unnatural fear of death into the experienced soldier's head. only now could Demoindt see the agony, the misery stuck upon what was left of the creature's face, it was just as much a victim as he is. The corpse's song rung out once more, echoing through the room. a deep, melodious hum that filled the air with a gospel of dread, grim and somber. ancient. The song, and its meaning, burrowed forcefully into Demoindt's mind.
"Holy shit!" was the yell again, the Free Worlders crying out in alarm. Weapons were raised, but nobody dared to fire lest they hit Demoindt. The talk on their closed comms was frantic and fast, and it was after a moment of panicked chatter that one of the KIDDS troopers headed forward, putting their MG on their back as they advanced to try and help the Annolidian.
"I would much prefer we kept the decibels to a minimum on this expedition. The ruckus we're causing could wake the de-" was what Demoindt had begun to say before the corpse sprung atop of him. Its claws and song both in equal measure began breaking through his helmet. A hiss of escaping air from Demoindt's mask was all the indication the rest of the Annoliddans needed. Carefully, and with only small arms, a few of them began taking shots at what few parts of the cadaver's body were not pressed against the artisan's. The others dared not get any closer, lest the creature could entangle multiple targets at once.
Demoindt himself worked frantically despite the sudden encumbrance. He tried desperately to break his weapon free enough from the living corpse's grasp that he could fire, while his other hand moved over the controls for the nearest harmonic resonator. Demoindt's efforts only lessened the resistance he could put up against the bloody monster as its claws finally broke through and made contact with the Annoliddan's bare flesh. Demoindt, understandably distracted, unwittingly made a telepathic connection, allowing the wallowing song to flow into his mind unimpeded.
These events and the connection lasted but a mere moment. Demoindt finally broke one arm free and activated the harmonic resonator. A true sense of understanding for the creature's plight, its sorrow and anguish at what it had become, began filling his mind.
"...pathetic."
At this word the resonator activated, a powerful sonic pulse ripped through the air at the pair. It tore to bits, not the corpse, but the final bindings of Demoindt's armor, allowing him to discard it and most of the creature. As he did, he began unloading his shotgun once again, now simply trying to push the bag of flesh and metal away as it continued to claw at his now exposed body. Demoindt activated the resonator a second time, now setting it to a frequency to tear away at organic flesh. His own arm got caught in the blast, visibly being torn apart skin, muscle, and sinew alike. Stopping but a moment to look down at his now cadaver of a hand, the high pitched, deafening ringing in Demoindt's ears did little to drown out the mournful chorus that pervaded his mind.
"Fuck. Fuck! Pathetic!" His sorrow for the creature quickly turned to anger at himself for falling into such an obvious trap. What remained of his underlying suit and gear began supplying water to his gills. Still, even as fresh oxygen entered his system, so too did the red mist.
Tevir, along with the rest of the Inquisition squad, kept their guns trained on the scene. Most aimed and fired at any bit of the corpse that remained moving, while a select few including Tevir aimed at their comrade...
The corpse, torn from its flesh and now only exposed bones on what was left of its torso, clawed its way forward like an animal. The physical state of the abomination would and should have made any movement at all from this point impossible, and yet it persisted. this creature, this entity, was not labored or inhibited by the limitations of a physical body. it felt no pain, it cared for no sound other than its own song, which still echoed unnaturally from its now nonexistent throat, and its empty sockets were locked on Demoindt as it drug itself toward him, ignoring his retaliation completely. even in this weakened state, it would not submit.
the fear the corpse had forced into Demoindt's thoughts had not waned, not even when he broke free. no, he still felt that hopeless dread, that fear of imminent death, and it only seemed to get closer, more intense, as the creature's song continued to echo in his mind, the words to the song soon became clear, almost upon demoindt's own tongue as though he were about to join..."Oh, death" the song said in his thoughts as he could only will himself not to join in, lest his subconscious action be to sing aloud. "Oh, Death...."
While the rest of Black Sail's forces forged ahead, leaving behind the others to sort out their own problems, Firefly had remained in place. She watched from atop the stacks of cargo containers as the exchange with the corpse continued. It attacked the Annoliddan, was subsequently shot, and continued to fight it's way forward while the others stood dumbfounded. No doubt they'd shoot it again, and the Subjugator supposed it would be about as effective as the last time.
She should have followed Alison, left the Annoliddans to sort themselves out... but she'd only survived Askandar because they'd treated her after her overdose. It wouldn't be fair, or polite, to leave them to die.
Slinging her rifle across her back the Subjugator descended from her perch, crossed the distance separating her from the corpse, and once she was standing over it let her cloaking field drop and shimmered back into the visible spectrum. She didn't bother with introduction or explanation. Instead, she pulled an incendiary off her bandolier, grabbed a fist full of the creatures hair, yanked back, and rammed the incendiary into it's mouth. She released it and stepped away. Bullets hadn't worked, so maybe burning the corpse would.
The resulting explosion should have scattered the bones, dispersed the red fog, and ended this nightmare, but none of that was necessarily true. the corpse held together, but had lost what was left of its limbs and half its lower jaw. it was finally stopped, but the corpse continued to glare its empty sockets at Demoindt as the fire engulfed it, through the roar of the flames it kept humming as it tried desperately to worm its way to him.
The KIDDS trooper, a man by the name of Dwight, made his move at this time. Bullets hadn't killed it. Fire hadn't killed it. The foot-long knife he had sheathed on his suit's left forearm probably wouldn't kill it, but like hell he wasn't going to try. Drawing the knife, he headed over to the thing and raised the blade high. Not even giving a single word to Firefly he slammed the monoblade down into it's neck, and if that didn't kill it, sever it's spine, he slammed the blade into the top of it's head, and did so again, and again, and again.
The other Free Worlders headed to help Demoindt, the team leader bringing his medics if the Annolidian needed them as the others took up positions to aim at the thing, and further ahead.
Unknown Location: Neutral Space
It had finally stopped, though not because it was finally dead, more so because it now had no means of moving further. the skull, jawless, completely stripped of any remaining tissues, still had its ominous red glow, and the black hand imprint across its face, which was now revealed to have fingers which had wrapped all the way around to the back of the skull, much too long to of been a human handprint. The skull appeared to be watching everyone in the room still, and yet, even in its completely harmless and defeated state, it almost mockingly continued its song.
Tevir cautiously approached Demoindt, who had fallen to his knees and had hands pressed to the sides of his head. The color continued to drain from Demoindt's complexion and his eyes flicked back and forth, sensing but not understanding the source of his fear. Death was a stagnant concept to the Annoliddans, and a sudden fear of it was multiplied by the lack understanding of why he feared it.
Tevir contacted his ship. "Grilia, have a team ready for exfil and quarantine, live target." He reached down and grasped the loose bits of Demoindt's, not daring to make a connection with him, and hoisted him to his feet. Tevir motioned for five of his squad to escort Demoindt back to the corvette until a full analysis could be done on his... condition.
"All units, switch to I/AO. Someone tune the resonators to cancel out that damn humming."
"Wait!" Shouted Demoindt. Before he was dragged out of the room, he uploaded an additional tonal frequency to the resonators, both the song and the singing tunes being eliminated, at least phonetically. He gave a wide smile, one that quickly faded as the singing in his head continued, the haunting memory persisting.
Tevir cursed his luck, having split his squad and a casualty this early in an operation.
"...Forward."
Something caught Demoindt's eye briefly among the fog. A massive, tall shape nearing almost twenty feet in height with what appeared to be tree branches, or antlers, reaching even further from what could only be the figure's head. It was only the briefest of moments that this form could be seen by him before it disappeared within the thick blood red fog, but one feature stood out to him most. It had three eyes, all staring right at him, the centermost eye, which rested on its head vertically and was noticeably larger than the other two, burned its image into his mind just as the corpse's song had. Before he could blink, gather his thoughts, the lumbering figure was gone, as though it was never there.
The walking corpse was no longer a threat, but whatever force drove it continued to drive it further, what little was left of the corpse seemed to shake, tremble, as though a vain attempt to gather itself. the Skull's eyeless sockets continued to glare at the soldiers around it, each one individually experiencing their own interpretation of fear from the sight. it kept humming as far as they could tell, but it could pose no further risk in this state. what remained of its body, what few shreds of clothing that weren't burned or in tatters, seemed almost civilian. the corpse was but one of the ship's passengers.
As the Annoliddan was dragged off Firefly stood silently over the corpse, watching as it seemed to glare at those that surrounded it. There were a great many things the Subjugator might have said in the moment. She could have cracked wise, or said something brave, arrogant, boisterous or a combination of the three...
But she didn't. She couldn't after all. Silently she reactivated her cloak, fading from most spectrums. With Alison pushing on the AI cores Firefly opted instead to head back to her perch atop the shipping containers, keeping watch over the other factions present and making sure their exit was secured.
Alison meanwhile continued to the AI core. By now, the drones had fanned out across the ship, providing a decent feed of what was going on around the Exiles. For now, it seemed clear. Whether that would last was up to debate.
"Move it out, keep close order a bit back from the Annoliddians." the team leader ordered. "No offense, guys. Just keeping an eye on the six." he said to the Inquisition team. The Free Worlders formed up in a semi-tight group, their weapons up and ready as they began to move. They kept their ears open and their fingers on triggers, ready to engage anything that assaulted them in one hell of a hurry if they had to.
They all were unnerved by what'd happened for sure, and not a few had been stared at by that... thing. Needless to say they didn't share what they feared most, keeping silent and moving on with the rest of their men.
As the drones fanned out down corridors and into rooms it became apparant that whatever was happening was simply not natural. No movement was triggered on the drones sensors as they made through fog filled hallways, unable to pierce some of them with even the most powerful of their small sensors. IR signals turned up only trace levels of heat, usually from background systems of the liner which even then should have been running far hotter. Sounds were a plenty and the occasional blip on life signs sensors appeared before rapidly dissapearing again, only fog being left behind.
Every now and again a drone would go dark, there was no definitive place or time for their deaths just like they had sucumbed to something, whether that was more of the walking corpses or extreme cold the Subjugator could not tell. But one thing that did show on the drone sensors was the all pervasive humming tune.
The ship otherwise seemed in fine condition, there was no damage to any bulkheads or corridors as the forces began to move. Door pads worked perfectly, bulkheads slid back like they were supposed to and data ports seemed to hum with at least some mediocum of power. Only the lights did not function, although from the fog density it was likely that they would have made no difference at all anyway.
The situation was getting stranger by the second as Bebop reported the loss of a few of the drones as well as the ever-present humming. Alison was beginning to suspect there were forces at play here outside of what she, or indeed anyone in the Organization, would consider 'normal'.
What that meant was up in the air. There were reports of all manner of strangeness in this new galaxy, and she knew not what... brand of strangeness this might be. Psionics? Magic? A flying spaghetti space monster?
One thing was certain: She didn't like this.
Arriving at the AI Core Bebop went to work on unlocking the door and then downloading the ship's logs.
"Gotsa a bad feelin' 'bout this," Cletus commented. "My throat gunna get cut again?"
"Shut up Cletus," Alison said with a sigh. "Once we pull the data let's take a quick look through it for any survivors. If there's none we're heading out and fragging this ship. Probably worth more as scrap anyway,"
"What about the others?" Jeb interrupted.
"Fuck 'em," Alison answered. "Except the Inquisition I guess. But fuck the rest of them,"
Back in the hangar, the red fog only seemed to be getting thicker, obscuring the area's surroundings almost completely. despite their initial encounter, all was calm. peaceful. before the humming started once more. from all around the chamber, deep within the fog. hundreds of voices in unison, humming that same grim hymn. one by one, forms started appearing from within the fog, dozens, if not hundreds.
While the teams had been distracted by the one threat, they successfully ignored the numerous others moving through the fog. surrounding them. too many.
"Get out of there! hurry!"
A voice broke through the song over the ship's P.A. system. it was a young girl. as she spoke, the main hangar doors opened leading to the rest of the ship, simultaneously clearing some of the fog which obscured the horde of monsters that surrouned the room. all of them were once the ship's passengers, all of them with the same rotted away handprint exposing their skulls, and all of them with their empty sockets focusing on their previously trapped prey while they hummed their ominous tune.
The sound of other doors through the ship opening and closing could be heard.
"I can only keep the doors open so long before the rest come! please, Ive made a path for you! hurry!" she cried into the speakers. she could only be on the bridge of the ship to have this kind of control over the vessel. the only possible safe place was now made clear to the soldiers. their time was thin, their chances of surviving the horde slimmer the longer they hesitate.
"Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" Dwight swore, raising his LMG before someone else tapped his shoulder plate.
"We gotta friggin' go!" shouted the other Explorer, pointing to where the hanger doors were now open. The rest of the Free Worlds troopers were already making their way towards them, a few men hurling grenades over their shoulders into the horde as they went. Dwight fired off a burst from his machine gun into the horde as he backed up, turning as he let the finger off the trigger and made for the door. There was just no time, and if the Annolidians were following or leading, great, but they weren't going to stop.
Alison's annoyance over the entire situation was only growing the longer things went on. First, they gett to the AI Core only to quickly discover it had been cut off from the rest of the ship, making it functionally useless (what a waste of time). The logs were less than helpful indicating only that everything was fine right up until it wasn't with little to no indication of why it suddenly wasn't. And as if all that wasn't bad enough the door had locked behind them and the singing (which had been annoying the first time and was now trending very quickly toward 'infuriating') had started up again.
The rhytmic tapping of her armored finger against the trigger guard rapidly increased in tempo, making her annoyance clear to the other members of her team as they waited for further instructions. The voice over the PA system only served to push the redhead over the edge and with a muttered curse she finally picked up her communicator and keyed in to the open channel.
"Hey dipshit!" She shouted into the reciever. "While you were busy opening doors for the fuck-ups in the cargo bay you locked us in the fucking AI Core. You want to do us all a favor and open the fucking door?"
Tevir's squad wasted no time once the "horde" revealed itself. Laser fire streaked through the fog, followed quickly by incendiary rounds. Regardless of the longevity of these creatures, it would be hard for them to move and attack as piles of ashes. To increase his squad's efficiency, one Squire revealed a gift he acquired from the Proxian Empire on Askandar: three small disks of Imp-wire traps were thrown into the mix. Razor-sharp strands of metal wire spun out and began ripping into the shambling bodies. It wasn't a permanent defense however...
"Go, go! Through the opening!" The Annoliddan squad quickly followed behind their human comrades. Once again the plan had changed, and while Tevir could not shake the hunch this entire operation was a trap, options and alternatives were in short supply.
The time spent skirting around everyone could have been better spent plotting a direct course to the servers and datacore, but now they were blocked off by several doors and another group had beat them to the objective anyways. It was a moot point now, and the Puppeteer team present had much more immediate things to worry about. "Uh, One-Actual, we've got... a lot of contacts--"
"Shut the fuck up and make way for that door, Two-One, or we're ditching you." Three invisible figures glided by the five-man team as the voice and his partners made way for the opened door.
Two-One blinks at the sudden outburst. It was against protocol to explode like that, even to a subordinate. The situation, even if not under any sort of remote control, did not warrent the emotional break that the team leader had heard from the Hunter-Killer team's leader. But even then, he was not going to question his logic or course of action. "Two-All, make for the door. Two-three, Two-four, take up the rear."
Green lights blinked as everyone confirmed they recieved their orders. The two Puppeteers backpedaled with their repeaters aimed at the horde as a precautonary measure as the other three made their way forward to the doorway, following the Free Worlds and Annoliddan troops through the hanger doors.
The chorus was almost deafening, that same archaic, grimm tune that seemed to taunt the teams as they fled. coming from more than one source, the song seemed to vibrate the room. the horde, like their predecessor, seemed almost completely unphased by the counter assault launched at them. in fact, the children in the crowd seemed to be nimbly ducking through the adult corpses' legs and gathering parts lost in the frackas, and reassembling their deceased family members, even the original corpse was soon finding its limbs returning to its burned, skeletal frame, despite the lack of the top of its skull, so that it might join in the undead pursuit with the others.
Each and every one of the corpses' empty eye sockets, however, were perfectly affixed to their prey, every last one, an ominous red glow burned deep within their skulls. their glares seemed to draw the soldiers' attention, as though some unseen force demanded they gaze deep into their seemingly empty gaze, where only fear and madness would await them. should they fall victim to this magnetic force, the horde would and could easily engulf them all. judging by the monsters' relatively slow pace, this was their plan, as the davians seemed all too willing to demonstrate, unfortunately. within seconds, their entire team had disappeared into the crowd, their death cries filling the comms system the others had been using before being replaced by the same horrific tune which continued to torment the survivors.
"Please! hurry!" the young girl cried into the P.A. system. "please!"
"We're not stopping!" shouted one of the Explorers. "Anybody who falls, PA boys get 'em!" added the team leader pounding along and following the path that the young girl was opening for them. The Free Worlders weren't stopping for anything and anyone but their own, soldiers being grabbed and taken up by their power armor soldiers when someone fell or tripped. No weapons were fired by the Explorer team as they ran, as one they would hit the Annolidians and two, there was just no time.
"How far do we have to fragging go?!" gasped out one of the team, still running like grim death.
"Too far perhaps," Responded Tevir as the Annoliddans began catching up with the Free Worlders. Their larger size was counteracted by their innate agility and timing, using every angle on the floors and walls to keep pace with everyone else. Whenever an explorer fell too far behind, one of Tevir's men would give them a less than gentle shove forward and mental stabilizing to keep them going.
The Annoliddan commander then checked his com-link for functionality. "Grilia, if you can still reach me, run a trace on the P.A.'s signal source. See if you can find where our little friend is."
In passing, the halls were mostly left alone. the events which unfolded before the teams had arrived apparently happened without struggle as most everything on the ship was intact. doors were sealed as the teams reached them, the obvious reason why being the skull-faced abominations on the other side of the glass from the staff quarters watching them flee, but clearly their new ally was trying to help guide them to her location, the safest way possible. as the they ran, however, horrific visions filled the fog. family members left behind, left to the same fate as the passengers before them, as realistic as though they were actually there. horrific demons rushing from the opposite directions only to disappear before contact, the horde rushing down the hallway and manifesting from thin air only to disappear like the apparitions before them. it would only strengthen their resolve to reach safety.
Each soldier experienced something different, some personal assault to their psyche, some entity in the fog which seemed to almost perfectly manifest as their current greatest fears, save for one thing. at the end of their current hall, they witnessed a single lifeless corpse laid with its back against the wall, the life almost completely drained from it leaving it a shriveled husk well beyond a state of decay for something that could only be a few days old. the corpse wasnt totally human either despite initial interpretations, rather it had seemingly canine features with pointed ears and large canine-like incisors in place of what should have been human molars which glimmered in what appeared to be a wide grin, directed straight at the soldiers as though in mid hysterical laughter. in its claw-like hand it wielded a curved blade of unknown origin, in another it held a handful of hair. behind it, in crimson red, was what resembled a massive hand painted cross mixed with an almost reptilian or cat-like eye. even simply glimpsing at this symbol forced them to avert their gaze from some unknown power, it was a feeling as though being stared down upon by a superior officer, or an angry parent. as they were forced the run closer, the eye's gaze alone sent a single surging sensation of dread over each of them. it felt as though running straight into the jaws of a predator, a sensation that was almost forcing them to freeze in their tracks the closer they got, never before had these hardened soldiers felt more like weak children, just by being in this eye's presence. the distant chorus, however, gave more than enough motivation to fight their own bodies and continue on.
Allison, meanwhile, had received no further contact from the young woman, only interference from the Davian comms as they slowly died and joined the undead chorus. perhaps the girl had been unaware they were even there, as they had hastily separated from the initial groups to go their own way, but one thing was for certain, the only help they would get at the moment was their own.
"Jesus fuck," Alison muttered. "Even when they're dying the Davians manage to find a way to fuck over their allies. This is ri-goddamn-diculous. Get the fucking door open and find me a route to the nearest airlock. Unless someone has a compelling reason not to I say we ditch this rust bucket, nuke it, and call it a fucking day,"
There were no immediate challenges to the Exile's command, only several prolonged minutes of silence as the death squad set to work on the door with thermal cutters and Bebop went about downloading and examining ship schematics from the AI Core to find the quickest route out.
Then, Cletus raised a hand.
"What is it?" Alison said with a sigh.
"Yeah boss uh..." Cletus said. "Where'd Firefly go?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Firefly had abandoned her post. Order or no, the Subjugator wasn't keen to test her cloaking systems against a... well... zombie horde (for lack of a better term) that seemed to be very stubborn when asked politely if they could die now.
She trailed invisibly behind the others, keeping just ahead of the Davians bringing up the rear. After all, she figured she need not move faster than the horde. If she moved faster than the Davians she ought to be fine. Best to conserve her energy while she could.
Which as it turned out wasn't long. The Davians died shortly after the sprint had begun, now leaving the Subjugator solidly at the rear of the retreating soldiers... formation.
Although calling it a formation was being a bit generous more of a blob really.
She still wasn't keen to test out the effectiveness of her cloak on a zombie horde and decided it best to pick up the pace and catch up with the others. She did her best to ignore the terror around her. She was a Subjugator after all and blocking out distractions to focus on an objective was nothing new...
It was working at first, then they came across the wolf-thing.
She didn't like the Wolf-Thing. She didn't like its face. She didn't like its state of decay. She didn't like its scythe. None of the other passengers had scythes. Why did this one?
Trap. She was sure of it.
With a flick of her eyes she let a dose of combat stimulants flood her system. She dodged around the rearmost of the blob and dropped to one knee, shouldering the anti-material rifle and sighting in the wolf-thing.
With the soldiers ahead of her moving slower it was easier to aim between them and with a deafening crack in the confined space the rifle fired, launching it's payload toward the head of the wolf-thing.
Zombies. Nightmares. And then a wolf-headed freak with the most sinister blade imaginable. This reminded Fyarael too much of her previous assignment. Of that god-damned rock that killed her the first time. Of the callous god that had ordered her presence to begin with, and the even less appealing gods that she had endured in death.
The straw that broke the camel's back was the roar of Firefly's anti-material rifle and the unistakable whistle of the massive kinetic projectile sailing past everyone. With a desperate, terrified cry audible only to her team members, the young Puppeteer raised her plasma pistol and opened fire on the creature, emptying plasma bolt after plasma bolt into it.
"Two-Five, cease fire, cease fire!" Two-One calls out while swiftly moving to intervene, dragging the young Puppeteer out of her stupor but too late to stop her first shots. The other three Puppeteer soldiers trained their rifles at the creature ahead, unsure of what to do. Protocol dictated that they learn more of their foe before engaging it, but that required critical time that was not available. So, realistically, there was only one option to take.
The eight Puppeteers press on. They may die if they move onwards, but they will definitely die if they stop now.
Annoliddan memory was a long one. Passing memories from one generation to the next since the civilization started had great benefits... and a few terrible setbacks.
As the ramshackle bunch of squads approached this point, each among the Annoliddans were buffeted by similar, yet distorted horrors of the same memories: Lurking, dark creatures who had no business swimming amongst the horde, howling sounds akin to a tortured sapient ringing in their ears, and the occasional sight of a being with glowing amber eyes and several limbs haunted their perception as they advanced.
Upon reaching the hallway with the canine-headed undead and his "seal" for lack of a better word, the Annoliddans formed two tight groups and decelerated like a herd of animals knowingly lining up for the slaughterhouse. An ancient, primal fear arose at the sight of the occult markings, one that not even Tevir could seem to grasp.
Yet their was another emotion rising in their ranks, for with instinctive fear came an instinctive response. Clustered as they were and communicating telepathically with one another, their collective resolve called to stand and fight rather than backing away. As Firefly's shot split the air, Tevir called out to the other group. "Hold here! Let nothing get through!" Even as he yelled, his group surged forward, a new level of determination in each of them; as the fear took hold as they stared down the markings and creature before them, anger began to rise. Anger, because this was the same power that killed all those on this ship; anger, for making the Annoliddans feel terrors they didn't know existed; anger, because this shriveled corpse was in their way.
Even as Tevir's group unleashed all manner of munitions at the creature, the other Annoliddan group did likewise at the horde behind them. Streaks of red light blazed across the handprinted heads of the ex-passengers as controlled bursts of incendiary rounds exploded in the mass of shambling bodies. Two Annoliddans had taken note of the kinetic round's origin behind them, and focused on keeping the mass off of its source, Firefly.
The Free Worlders ran on grimly, their boots pounding on the floor as they fired into the horde behind them, dumping mags and ammo boxes into mass of undead. They didn't stop when they saw the strange thing, even as visions of death and destruction rampaged through their minds. The horrors of Remnant Fleet Gorgon and worse haunted them relentlessly, but like when fighting the Remnant Fleet they could not stop.
Tracers howled and spat alongside grenades and other explosives hurled by the troopers as they ran onwards, rifles dropped to hang on their slings when they ran dry of ammo to favor sidearms. Those with belt fed weapons like Dwight fired on and on until their barrels threatened to melt, pausing then only to run on until they were able to fire behind them again. They had to run, they had to find safety, they would not stop until either they had refuge or they were all dead. There was no in-between.
The corpse was not spared the frightened soldiers' barrage as it was pelted with weapons fire, quickly rendering the remains to mere shreds and dust, and revealing it to be just a husk, no life or un-life resided in it to warrant the violent reaction. the corpses which made their ways through the halls to their impending victims, however, were all too willing to give the soldiers the reaction they anticipated from their lifeless victim, their song was almost joyous. the paranoia, meanwhile, sunk in even further as glimpses of impending attacks and unspoken horrors manifested in the corners of the soldiers' eyes, brief, but maddening glimpses.
The combination of her own training as well as the cocktail of narcotics now coursing through her veins kept the Subjugator calm despite the encroaching horde. The animal part of her screamed at her to run, or hide, or do something, but the intelligent part knew she had to wait until the hail of gunfire died down before she could continue forward.
Whatever trap there may have been was, in all likelihood, thoroughly destroyed now and so the Subjugator rose from her crouch and pressed forward. As she finally pushed herself passed the corpse she spared a glance for the symbol scrawled on the wall behind it... or what remained after stray shots had made their mark.
A shiver travelled down her spine and she contemplated explosives to wipe the symbol out...
But high explosives and space ships rarely mixed well.
She tore her glance away and continued up the corridor, pausing once past the symbol to let some of the others move passed her. It would be easier to go unnoticed at the rear of the blob than its head.
Do not stop. Do not stop. Do not stop.
This was the mantra of the Explorer team as they kept going, men were getting out of breath as those that'd been borne along by the PA troopers were let down, the breathless troops taking their spots as the PA pounded on, on, on. No more ammunition was expended as they weren't able to afford wasting any more, but all the same the Free Worlders were beginning to get desperate. Where were they going... how much farther did they have to go...?
"HEY!" one of the troopers shouted out, acting on her desperation as she didn't know if the voice would or could hear her-- but she shouted regardless. "Where the frak are we going?! Where are you leading us?!"
"Go! Go! Don't stop, don't look back, just run!" the voice of One-Actual boomed on the Puppeteer comms network.
"What about the mission?!" Two-One cries out. Protocol has gone out the window at this point, and all that mattered was to somehow find a way out of this madhouse.
"Damn the mission! We're looking at at least a localized reality warping occurrence! We're not fucking equipped for this shit, our job was to get in, recon, and get out! We've done the recon so we're getting the hell out!" One-Actual fires back, silencing the confused Team Two's leader.
Some of the Annoliddans could not handle the onslaught of mental torment flung at them and simply decelerated, letting themselves be consumed by the mob behind the others. One still had the (in)sanity to detonate her armor's shielding and overload weapons as the horde closed in, releasing a small concussive blast, but with next to no avail. Tevir and the others joined with their fellow boarding parties and surged forward.